MINISTER NGUYEN NGOC THIEN ATTENDED THE 9TH APEC TOURISM MINISTERIAL MEETING 2016 IN LIMA, PERU

Accepting the invitation of Minister of Foreign Trade and Tourism of Peru, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Ngoc Thien attended the 9^th APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting, organized from 28^th - 29^th May 2016 in Lima, Peru with the theme “Cooperation in Asia – Pacific region through favorable traffic conditions”. Also attending the meeting were ministers responsible for tourism, leaders of National Tourism Administrations, specialists, scientists, tourism researchers of APEC member economies and leaders of international organizations specialized in tourism such as World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), World Travel& Tourism Council (WTTC), APEC Secretaries, local and international press and media.

Before the 9^th APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting, Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Nguyen Ngoc Thien together with Tourism Ministers from Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies attended the “Ministerial Meeting of the competitiveness of the tourist destinations” to review and assess the state of the competitiveness of the tourist destinations of APEC economies, exchange the lessons learned on the measurement and identification, as well as propose the solutions to boost the competitiveness ability of the APEC tourist destinations in the near future.

Later, all the Ministers attended the Opening Ceremony of the 9^th APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting held solemnly at the Lima National Convention Centre. The tentative agenda was started by the report of Peru's Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the preparation, priorities and important issues related to tourism of the host country of Peru in 2016; also the report by the APEC Secretariat on APEC cooperation results in recent times, and there were focused reviews and comments on the report of the APEC Tourism Working Group about the APEC tourism cooperation recently, with highlights in 2015 that APEC tourism had received 350 million foreign visitors with the income of 480 billion US dollars and created 47 million direct working opportunities. All the ministers considered and provided opinions toward the results of implementing “APEC tourism development strategy in the period of 2015 - 2019”, other accomplished projects and programs as well as processing projects and programs under the cooperation framework of APEC tourism.

In the meeting, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thien announced the results of Vietnamese tourism activities over the last periods, as well as updated new undertakings and policies of Viet Nam’s tourism of the Party and Government in order to boost the development of tourism including investments, enhancing tourism infrastructures, developing human resources, creating favorable traffic conditions for tourists, exempting visa for citizens from UK, France, German, Spain and Italy, increasing the total number of countries received Vietnamese visa exemption for citizens with common passports to 22 nations.

The content of Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Thien’s speech had received major consensus and high appreciation of ministers in charge of tourism from APEC member economies, other international organizations specialized in tourism such as The United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) and World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC). APEC tourism ministers highly valued the contribution of APEC tourism and agreed to propose that APEC state members’ leaders emphasize the importance of tourism as a driving force for job creation, economic development, sustainable development and peace building in the joint declaration. All ministers, representatives of international organizations agreed that the general policies and guidelines will promote tourism development. Exempting policies, simplifying visa procedures, providing ETA (Electronic Travel Authority) as well as creating favorable traffic conditions for tourists will contribute strongly to tourist attractions and enhance economic contribution to the budget.

Continuously, Ministers had discussed about the specific contents, with the emphasize in boosting APEC tourism cooperation including increasing airline connection between APEC member economies, creating favorable traffic conditions for tourist so that they can have best experiences when visiting APEC tourist destinations, enhancing skills and professional knowledge and the abilities of APEC tourism’s human resources, supporting the operation and development of small and medium sized enterprises (SME) working in the tourism field, increasing the operation between regions. The government with private sector and researchers are increasing cooperation between APEC tourism working group with other working groups and other cooperation systems of APEC such as traffic, information - media, anti-terrorism, ensuring security, safety, technology science, customs, etc.

Then, there were reports of international organizations specialized in tourism, such as World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the World Travel& Tourism Council (WTTC) which discussed about the cooperation situation among the APEC member economies and updated the situation, trends, major orientation for tourism development in the world in recent years. UNWTO had informed about the international events which were held in collaboration with the APEC member economies in 2016, including the International Conference on Tourism and Sport, organized 9/2016 in May in Da Nang city. In particular, the international organizations specialized in tourism had emphasized that the decision of the United Nations General Assembly choosing 2017 as the year of  "International Year of Sustainable Tourism Development" and requests all the countries to have practical activities to celebrate this event.

Before ending the meeting, all ministers had discussed and agreed to General Lima announcement about “Connecting Asia-Pacific region through creating favorable traffic conditions”, in which continuing highlighting the importance role and contribution of tourism sector to region’s development, and expressing the commitment and determination to achieve the goal of welcoming 800 million international visitors in 2025 as stated in the 8^th APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting hold in Macau, China in 2014 and requesting specific activities to achieve this goal. The 10^th APEC Ministerial Meeting will be held in Papua New Guinea in 2018.

Trịnh Quốc Anh (ICD)