Participants at the event
The EATOF Permanent Committee Meeting agreed on contents of cooperation and development of joint projects among EATOF members, to be submitted for approval at the 17th EATOF General Assembly in Quang Ninh in 2020.
The focus is cooperation on tourism popularization and promotion, human resources exchanging and training for tourism and development experiences sharing among member provinces.
In his speech at the event, a leader of the Quang Ninh Department of Tourism said that the strong and sustainable growth of member provinces over the past time showed the effectiveness of the connection in the EATOF. Activities of the forum also contributed to promoting the development of other sectors such as culture, art and economy of each locality and each country.
EATOF Secretary-General speaking at the event
With the theme related to green tourism, EATOF Secretary-General IlSub Jeong affirmed the importance of developing green tourism and providing principles for sustainable tourism development.
According to the statistics, the total number of tourists in 2018 reached 1.4 billion people, an increase of 6% compared to 2017. The figure displays the booming tourism industry worldwide. In the world today, there are many types of tourism.
At the conference, EATOF emphasized on a new type of tourism that is green tourism in East Asia. Through the cooperation of EATOF members, it would help maximise the natural advantages of its member localities.
Namjo Kim, from the Hanyang University, the Republic of Korea, suggested that sustainable tourism development needs to rely on the community. Accordingly, sustainable tourism will be environmentally friendly tourism, which promotes socio-cultural and historical values, towards the local population community.
Ike Janita Dewi, from the Sanata Dharma University, Indonesia, said that tourism development strategies need to link economic development with the preservation of culture and natural resources, and there should be regulations and policies from governments to bring sustainable tourism development principles into tourism development strategies.
The Quang Ninh event aims at allowing members of EATOF to discuss ways to develop green tourism in a sustainable manner and clarify the responsibilities of members in the future, towards the 17th EATOF General Assembly.
EATOF is an East Asia inter-regional tourism organization, established in 1999 in Gangwon, the Republic of Korea, with the goal of cooperating to develop the tourism industry toward sustainability in the region and among member provinces./.