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Asean plan may help tourists find Brunei

By Melvin Jong, The Brunei Times | Sun, Jan 24 2010

This is to promote the region as a collective tourism destination.

Asean plan may help tourists find Brunei

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tourism

BRUNEI stands to benefit from Asean's plan to promote the region as a collective tourism destination as this would help tourists place the Sultanate on the map, said a senior government official yesterday.

Sheikh Jamaluddin Sheikh Mohamed, Brunei Tourism Development Department director, said, "Brunei is not a specially well-known tourism destination in the world.

"So by being part of the campaign, we will be able to benefit by raising awareness of tourists on Brunei (via) not only the general combined marketing plans but also our own," he told The Brunei Times on the sidelines of yesterday's Asean Tourism Forum (ATF) held at The Empire Hotel and Country Club in Jerudong.

"Tourists visiting the region will realise that Brunei is located here and not somewhere in the Middle East," he said.

"This is our effort to promote Southeast Asia as a single destination and this was actually launched in Brunei in 2001 with a 'Visit Asean' campaign," said the director.

Others however see this as an opportunity to showcase the uniqueness of Southeast Asia to the rest of the world while strengthening the appeal of the region to tourists.

"I think one of the biggest reason to market this is because most of the people who come to this region will tend to visit more than one country because we have 10 countries in Asean, each offering something unique and different," said director of Singapore Tourism Board's International Group Soo Siew Keong.

"This is a real opportunity for us to capitalise on this trend and market ourself as one destination," he said.

Soo explained that each of the 10 Southeast Asia countries has their own strength and weaknesses when it comes to tourism appeal.

"If we all come together and market ourself as a single destination offering a diverse range of attractions, our appeal will be stronger in the face of different markets because there will be a very exciting range of activities for people to do," he said.

"For example, a tourist coming to this area can enjoy a homestay programme in Malaysia, enjoy the city life in Singapore and eco-tourism in Brunei," said Soo, adding that this was possible due to the connectivity within airline and cruise industries, making it very easy to travel from one country to another.

He said that there is however still room for improvement.

"Eventhough there is already good connectivity, there are still several countries not linked together so we will need to increase the air capacity and sea linkages between these countries," Soo said.

"There is also a need to look at improving land travel, particularly when going across borders," he added.

"Another thing we have to look at is how to improve the marketing campaign for the entire region."

More information regarding the marketing campaign is expected to be released sometime next week.

According to an earlier news report, Southeast Asia's five-year road-map to develop and promote the region as a collective tourism destination is currently "on target" for approval in November this year.