On September 9 was not the first time for the tourism leaders to discuss a plan to boost regional tourism development. For years, they have met on the occasion of international tourism fairs in HCMC to seek ways to promote an ambitious campaign called “Five Nations - One Destination.”
This time, the countries have reaped more fruit as Vietnam inked cooperation agreements with Laos and Myanmar, and signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Cambodia. Senior tourism officials of Vietnam and Thailand met to seek to enhance partnership.
Vietnam agreed on extending training for Cambodia’s tourism employees while Cambodia pledged to support Vietnamese businesses to invest in restaurants, hotels and river tours. The two sides will set up a special working group that will meet once or twice a year to thrash out cooperation programs.
“We propose Vietnam create favorable conditions for low-cost carriers to transport tourists between the two nations. As for cruises, Vietnam and Cambodia want to connect Phu Quoc Island of Vietnam and Sihanoukville of Cambodia and Bangkok in Thailand,” said Cambodia’s Minister of Tourism Thong Khon.
He said Cambodia is developing a passenger port in Kampot with an annual capacity of one million travelers. Visitors will need to spend just 45 minutes to get to the port from Phu Quoc Island.
Once in place, the port will help quadruple the number of passengers traveling between the two localities.
Meanwhile, Vietnam focuses on linking its heritage sites and those in Myanmar to provide more products to tourists.
Within the framework of the Ayeyawadi-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy (ACMECS), tourism leaders of the five nations agreed to make travels among the countries more convenient to lure tourists to the region and from other markets. They will coordinate in promoting the “Five Nations - One Destination” campaign.
Last year saw the number of visitors to Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar totaling 19.6 million, up 11.4% against 2013, with regional travelers making up over 16% of the total.
As many as 44 million people visited the ACMECS region last year with 19% of them locals.
Vietnam is a major transit point for visitors to Cambodia and Laos. Cambodia is among the top ten markets of Vietnam’s tourism sector.
Myanmar has emerged as an appealing destination while Thailand has the biggest number of tourists as well as many experiences in tourism development.
