China urges more Asian tourism cooperation
( 2003-11-03 22:33) (Xinhua)
Asian countries can only accelerate national and
cross-border tourism and create opportunities by breaking barriers and
strengthening cooperation and common development, a senior Chinese tourism
official said Monday.
Sun Gang, deputy director of the National Tourism Administration, was
speaking at a "Tourism Cooperation in Asia" session of the Boao Forum for Asia
(BFA) annual conference 2003.
Sun noted that the forum organizing committee's decision to include the
session showed that further cooperation and common development in Asia's tourism
industry had become an issue of common interest.
Asian countries, Sun acknowledged, must face the reality that their tourism
industries lagged behind the Western nations in terms of the exploitation of
tourism resources and its proportion of gross national product.
Arrivals of stay-over tourists in northeast Asia, ASEAN and South Asia
numbered 112 million in 2001, accounting for only 16.16 percent of the world
total, he said.
"Asia is not only a leading tourism destination for the world, but an
important source for global tourists," Sun said.
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