KUALA LUMPUR, July 28 — Collaborative and concerted cooperation among member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) should take place immediately in order to revive the regional tourism industry.
Deputy Secretary-General for Asean Economic Community (AEC), Satvinder Singh, said it is deemed crucial as the sector has been badly impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic, and Southeast Asia is even seeing rapid growth in the number of confirmed cases today.
“Travel and tourism have become one of the most important sectors in the world economy, and it is truly a huge contributor to our GDPs, undeniably.
“If we don’t get the sector back on its feet, that’s going to be a big chunk of our economy falling sick and not recovering. Hence, we really need all to come together, in the much deeper, concerted efforts on how fast we could come out from this challenge,” he said In his closing remark of a virtual webinar titled “Asean Tourism Webinar 2021: Outlook and Pathways to Recovery”, on Tuesday.
Organised by CARI Asean Research and Advocacy, the webinar also featured, among others, the Indonesian Minister of Tourism and Creative Economy (MoTCE) Sandiaga Uno and AirAsia Malaysia chief executive officer Riad Asmat.
Satvinder pointed out that as domestic containment measures have caused disruption to all stakeholders related to the tourism industry, especially the small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), both public and private sectors need to be pushed stronger in ramping up the vaccination coverage.
“It is important to get the support of businesses to be opened safely. The vaccination coverage could not be only propagated by the government alone. The private sector needs to step up in propagation and strengthen the vaccination drive, for respective communities.
“The Asean Digital Health Passport hopefully will bring the assurance of proper documentation of testing and vaccination and will also allow some proper global health protocols, and kind of building that confidence to the travellers,” he said.
On the same note, the Chair of Brunei’s Asean Business Advisory Council 2021 Yanty Rahman said many enterprises, particularly the Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) that depend on tourism, have gone out of business or are currently hanging by a thread.
“Despite the challenges of the transmission of emerging and more transmissible delta virus surges, it is crucial that the public and private sectors work together (sama-sama) to formulate a recovery roadmap.
“The roadmap shall also build the traveller’s confidence by ensuring end-to-end compliance with healthcare protocols set by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in support of the gradual revival of travel in the region so we could recover stronger together,” she said.
The Asean’s tourism industry contributed to 14.3 per cent of the region’s gross domestic product (GDP) and 13.7 per cent of total employment in the region.
In 2020, however, international tourist arrivals plummeted 80.5 per cent and suffered the loss of 75.8 per cent in tourism receipts.
— Bernama
