Holiday bosses gather for tsunami crisis talks
Tourism chiefs in South-East Asia are meeting to discuss how the industry can recover after the tsunami.
Ministers from 10 countries in the region, including Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia, gathered for the talks on the island of Langkawi in Malaysia, the BBC reports.
Work is progressing on rebuilding the region’s shattered infrastructure, but the countries involved fear visitors from abroad are being put off from coming back to the beaches.
They hope that by working together they can promote the region as a whole as a prime destination and rebuild prosperity in the long-term as well as in the immediate future.
Millions of jobs depend on the outcome of their efforts, with one in ten of the population in most of the countries involved working in the tourist trade. Before the tsunami struck, up to 50 million tourists were forecast to visit the countries involved in 2005.
The meeting of the regional grouping, ASEAN – the Association of South-East Asian Nations – is the first since the December disaster.
Report by News From Abroad
Ginny McGrath
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