30th ASEAN Tourism Forum ends in Cambodia

The 30th Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Tourism Forum concluded on Friday evening with a closer cooperation among ASEAN countries and its dialogue partners, said Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon at the closing ceremony.

"Our great achievement made in the forum this year is the adoption of the ASEAN tourism strategic plan 2011-2015 aimed to turn the ASEAN into a world class tourist destination by 2015," he told about 400 participants.

"Besides this, I hope that buyers and sellers have met their business partners for future cooperation," he said, adding that the forum also created a closer environment of cooperation among ASEAN countries and ASEAN with dialogue partners including China, Japan, South Korea, India and Russia.

The 30th ASEAN Tourism Forum kicked off on Jan. 15.During the event, there had been a series of meetings of ASEAN tourism ministers, ASEAN tourism ministers+3 (China, Japan and South Korea) and ASEAN tourism ministers+ India and Russia.

Also, there was the ASEAN Travel Exchange with the participation of up to 1,500 sellers with 512 booths from hotels, airline companies, tour operators and travel agencies in ASEAN countries and 466 buyers from the ASEAN, Asia, Europe and the United States of America.

The 31st ATF will be held in Indonesia in 2012.The ASEAN consists of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Source = philstar