KUCHING, Oct 27: Minister of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Dato Sri Abdul Karim Rahman Hamzah led a Sarawak delegation to the 17th East Asia Inter-Regional Tourism Forum (EATOF) General Assembly Meeting held in Halong City, Quang Ninh, Vietnam from Oct 25 to 27 in conjunction with the EATOF 20th Anniversary.
According to a media release today, Sarawak delegates attended a series of meetings which included the Standing Committee Meeting and Bilateral Meetings with member provinces to discuss the latest tourism policies, tourism developments, joint tourism promotions, international flight connectivity, youth exchange programme, cultural arts and festival performance to further strengthen partnership and collaboration in promoting the regional tourism.
The Sarawak delegation included Deputy Tourism Minister Datuk Sebastian Ting, Deputy Creative Industry and Performing Arts Minister Datuk Snowdan Lawan and the ministry’s permanent secretary Datu Hii Chang Kee.
EATOF is an international tourism association in East Asia, founded in Gangwon Province, South Korea in 2000 to enhance collaboration and cooperation among member provinces in promoting tourism in the East Asian region.
Currently, EATOF has 10 member provinces which comprise of Gangwon (South Korea) as the founder, Sarawak (Malaysia), Yogyakarta (Indonesia), Cebu (The Philippines), Tottori Prefecture (Japan), Jilin (China), Tuv (Mongolia), Quang Ninh (Vietnam), Siem Reap (Cambodia) and Luang Prabang (Laos).
In addition, EATOF also featured an academic symposium held back-to-back with the 17th General Assembly Meeting to present papers and discuss latest tourism related issues and trends for the way forward to support the full recovery of the tourism sector.
Among the special keynote speakers invited were from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO), TripAdvisor, public and private higher learning centres and tourism associations with a theme of East Asia tourism for panel discussion on significant contemporary interest to all EATOF member provinces.
A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was also signed among travel associations for joint tourism development, witnessed by the member provinces.
At the conclusion of the 17th EATOF Governors Conference, heads of member province delegations signed a joint declaration in celebration of the 20th Anniversary of EATOF to further enhance collaboration in promoting the regional tourism industry. — DayakDaily
