Background and Principles
The GMS tourism sector aims to develop and promote the Greater Mekong Subregion as a single destination, offering diverse, high-quality, and high-yield products from across the subregion. This approach helps distribute tourism benefits more widely and reduce undesirable impacts. Investments in tourism-supporting infrastructure, combined with capacity development, personnel training, and community-based tourism development, will contribute to poverty reduction, job creation, and sustainable development.
Under the GMS 2030 Strategy, the tourism sector will focus on addressing the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, including providing fiscal, financial, and training support for the tourism industry. As the subregion’s tourism industry has been severely affected, the strategy will support recovery efforts by developing high-value tourism and secondary city tourism, as well as strengthening human capital, connectivity infrastructure, public-private linkages, and environmental sustainability.
Recent Progress
The 53rd Greater Mekong Subregion Tourism Working Group Meeting and the Mekong Tourism Forum 2024 will be held from April 23-24, 2024, in Lijiang, People’s Republic of China. The events will report on the latest tourism developments, discuss and consult on approaches to support the Greater Mekong Subregion as a single tourist destination.
At the 53rd Tourism Working Group Meeting, all six GMS member countries reported on their tourism progress. Overall, tourism in all countries is growing, both domestic and international, with technology being utilized to develop and support tourism. For Thailand, the Department of Tourism representative reported on the country’s tourism statistics and discussed the ‘Ignite Tourism Thailand’ policy to promote Thai tourism, comprising five main strategies: (1) Excellent experiences at every step, (2) Five must-do activities in Thailand, (3) Major cities and attractive destinations, (4) ASEAN hub, and (5) Global event center.
The Mekong Tourism Forum 2024 featured a vision presentation from Chinese high-level leaders, emphasizing the Greater Mekong Subregion’s tourism potential, especially in ecotourism. Current tourism trends focusing on sustainable tourism to reduce carbon emissions were also discussed. Additionally, there were discussions on supporting cooperation and sustainable tourism in the Greater Mekong Subregion, focusing on various mechanisms both domestically and internationally, regional integration, tourism development using global standards, and environmental conservation considerations.
The 54th Tourism Working Group Meeting is scheduled to be held in November 2024 in Thailand, and the 55th Working Group Meeting and Mekong Tourism Forum 2025 are set to take place in May 2025 in Luang Prabang, Lao PDR.
