Tourism media from South Asia have responded eagerly to the proposal of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and Nepal Tourist Board (NTB) to work together in pursuing sustainable development and poverty alleviation through tourism.

This follows a meeting held in the Nepalese capital from 26-27 August, organised by ADB and NTB and supported by the World Tourism Organization, at which press representatives from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal met with government officials to evaluate possibilities for closer cooperation in the promotion of tourism, crisis communications and the ongoing fight against poverty.

The main objective of the workshop was to strengthen the relationship between the media and the South Asia Sub-regional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Programme, to enable the press to make a direct contribution to encouraging tourism in the sub-region, informing travel writers and focusing the media in general on the importance of tourism as an economic activity and the sustainability issues involved.

Much of the discussion was geared to regional cooperation among the four countries, especially between the media and the public and the private
sectors.

The workshop was opened by the Nepalese Minister of Foreign Affairs Ramesh Nath Pandey who stressed the need for governments to recognise the importance of the media in tourism development and his country`s commitment to pursuing tourism as its main economic activity.

Imtiaz Muqbil, Executive Editor of the Bangkok-based Travel Impact Newswire, said that huge investment plans were already under way in Asia such as the Chinese highway system and India`s rapid air-traffic expansion. He predicted a great opportunity for sub-regional development through the new Buddhist circle project, which will connect all the countries.

The four countries are all members of SASEC, one of whose main aims is to reduce the plight of the region`s poorer citizens. They account for some 500 million people out of an estimated 900 million poor people in Asia and the Pacific.

South Asia is one of the poorest and most densely populated areas in the world. However, because of the region`s unique endowment of resources, it can be transformed into a leading sub region of economic growth, said ADB country director Sultan Hafeez Rahman.

It`s good to see that governments and international organizations recognise the importance of our work, commented Rahman Janagir, a journalist from Bangladesh. It was on his initiative that delegates agreed to establish a South Asia Forum of Tourism Journalists (SAFTOJ), to which WTO will act as advisor. Nepal`s Assistant Minister for Culture, Tourism and Aviation, Ms Yankila Sherpa, said the success of (staging) such a demanding event and its outcomes confirm that Nepali tourism is alive and dynamic.

It is true that there are security problems in remote parts of our country. However, tourism moves on and we ask the media to also highlight this part of reality. Nepal`s attractions include the highest mountain in the world, Mt. Everest, and a string of UNESCO world heritage sites that include seven in the Kathmandu valley alone as well as Lumbini, the birthplace of Siddhartha Gautama (Lord Buddha).

WTO Chief of Press and Communications Rok Klancnik spoke of the phenomenal expansion of world tourism, while highlighting the vital need for crisis communications, a topic which countries should pay much more attention to, he added.

Enhancing government - media relationship and increasing capacity in the wide range of tourism communications, including crisis management and the role of the media in poverty alleviation, is at the heart of the TOURCOM Programme, which is itself central to WTO Press and Communications activities.

Two further TOURCOM regional conferences are slated for later this year, from 20-21 September in Amman, Jordan, and 12-13 October in Riga, Latvia.