October 2007                                                                                                                 www.MekongTourism.org

Official newsletter of the Mekong Tourism Office

In this issue:

Lao NTO Bags Ecotourism Award

Sasithara Promotion

Heritage Site Managers Enhance Skills

Lao and Cambodia Lead GMS Tourism Growth

Good Practice Guide Now Available

MTCO Seeks Executive Director

GMS Travel News At a Glance

About the Mekong Tourism Office

Lao NTO Bags Ecotourism Award

The Lao National Tourism Administration has won the "2007 Ecotourism Spotlight Award" for its ecotourism portal www.ecotourismlaos.com. The annual award is given by Planeta.com to a government website that promotes ecotourism well. Planeta.com visitors voted for the site because of its maps, listings, manuals and brochures. "The site makes it easy to do research on ecotourism in Laos," said one online voter. "The site stresses the cultural diversity of the country and how travellers can visit in a sustainable manner," said another. The runners-up were the Quito Visitors’ Bureau (Ecuador) and the US Agency for International Development’s "Frame" programme. Planeta.com in an online statement said: "We wanted to create an incentive for improved communications from government portals. This award allows us to highlight best practices and show other managers of government websites how to showcase operations that are striving towards sustainability and ecotourism."

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Sasithara Promotion

Dr Sasithara Pichaichannarong, one of the key players of GMS tourism development, has been promoted to Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Tourism and Sports in Thailand, effective October 1.

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Heritage Site Managers Enhance Skills
UNESCAP-UNESCO is this week concluding its inaugural series of "train the trainers" workshops aimed at improving the management of cultural tourism sites in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. In the workshops, UNESCO was responsible for training guides for cultural sites, some of which are World Heritage Sites. UNESCAP, with funding from the French government, brought in specialists to deliver training of site managers. Visitor management and site presentation techniques were emphasized. The three workshops took place in Hoi An in July, Ayutthaya in July/August and Vat Phou in Lao PDR in early October. UNESCO and the Lao National Tourism Administration this year jointly won a PATA Gold Award in the education and training category for their "Cultural Heritage Specialist Guide Programme".

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Lao and Cambodia Lead GMS Tourism Growth

PATA head office reports that arrivals into the GMS countries continue to do well. From January to April 2007, Lao PDR’s arrivals increased 27.3%, over same period last year, to 546,197. From January to July, Cambodia’s arrivals increased 21.5% to 1,072,618. From January to August, Vietnam’s arrivals climbed to 2,813,763, a rise of 16.9%. In the first eight months this year, Myanmar’s arrivals rose 18.3% to 188,196. In the first six months of the year, Thailand’s arrivals climbed a modest 3.3% to 6,954,752. To put such figures in perspective, the only other Asian destinations growing faster than 20% were Papua New Guinea (41.4%), Macau (26.8%) and Nepal (35.6%, air only).

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Good Practice Guide Now Available

A full-colour illustrated handbook of good practices for tourism operators has just been published in Thailand. "Sustainable Tourism Management in Thailand: A Good Practices Guide for SMEs" has been designed to help hotels, restaurants, nature and culture-based activity operators take easy steps towards sustainable management. It comprises tips on how to lower electricity and water consumption, manage waste in an eco-friendly way, and interact positively with local communities. To request a copy, free of charge, e-mail to saengrawee.t@gmail.com (PDF versions are also available). The bilingual book, in English and Thai, is a joint publication by the Environmental Research Institute of Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok (www.eric.chula.ac.th) and the Bumi Kita Foundation (www.naturalguide.org). Since May, the university and the foundation have delivered a series of successful best practice workshops in Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Phuket and Khon Kaen. The best practice initiative receives funding from the EU.

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MTCO Seeks Executive Director
The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) comprising the countries of Cambodia, China PRC (Guangxi and Yunnan), Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam is seeking an Executive Director to lead the Mekong Tourism Coordination Office (MTCO) and steer the implementation of the programmes and projects as identified within the Mekong Tourism Strategy. The Executive Director will lead a small but dedicated team of professionals working at the MTCO which is currently headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand. This person will be responsible for orchestrating the implementation of the marketing and development objectives of the MTCO. (More...)

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GMS Travel News At a Glance

• Vietnam Railways Corp says it will invest US$527.5 million in building two railways to link to Cambodia and Laos. The proposed links are Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh and Quang Binh province in Vietnam to Suvannakhet city in central Laos.

• Imagine tee-ing off in Cambodia and finishing your round in Vietnam. A cross-border resort and golf course may make such an unlikely scenario a reality. The US$100 million project would link Cambodia’s Svay Rieng province with Tay Ninh in Vietnam.

• The Bangkok Mass Transit System (BTS) Public Company Ltd is in negotiation with Phnom Penh municipal authorities to assess the feasibility of building an elevated "skytrain" system for the Cambodian capital.

• Nok Air of Thailand will launch two daily Bangkok-Hanoi flights on November 1 using a B737-800 with a capacity of 190 passengers.

• Six Senses Hotels, Resorts and Spas plan to open three new properties in Vietnam over the next three years: Con Dao island, Phu Quoc and Ho Chi Minh City.

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About the Mekong Tourism Office
The MTO was established in February 2006. Its four key objectives are to:-

• Develop and promote the Mekong as a single destination, offering a diversity of good quality and high-yielding sub-regional products that help to distribute the benefits of tourism more widely

• Add to the tourism development efforts of each GMS country

• Contribute to poverty reduction, gender equality and the empowerment of women

• Promote sustainable development, while minimising adverse impacts.

Contact Point

Mekong Tourism Office

5th Floor, Office of Tourism Development, Ministry of Tourism & Sports

154 Rama I Road, National Stadium, Bangkok 10330, Thailand

Tel: (66-2) 612-4150/1. Fax: (66-2) 612-4152.

E-mail: info@MekongTourism.org. Website: www.MekongTourism.org.

Media enquiries: media@MekongTourism.org.

Abbreviations

ADB (Asian Development Bank); EU (European Union); GMS (Greater Mekong Subregion); IMF (International Monetary Fund); MTO (Mekong Tourism Office); SNV (Netherlands Development Organization); STEP (Sustainable Tourism Eliminating Poverty); UNESCAP (United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific); UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization); UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organization).

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