International and Asian crises have prompted tourist officials in Asia to call for closer regional cooperation, according to officials attending the session of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference on Monday.

China National Tourism Administration Vice-Chairman Sun Gang announced at the forum, which concluded Monday, that the desire to seek partnership between Asian nations continues to grow stronger.

Since the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Asian countries have been faced with a series of challenging incidents, including the recent severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak, and have sought methods and measures to deal with crises through teamwork, according to Sun.

His view was echoed by other delegates attending the forum's concurrent session on tourism, including Jenny Shipley, former Prime Minister of New Zealand; Satoru Kanazawa, director-general of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of Japan; and II-Hyun Ji, vice-president of the Republic of Korea (ROK) National Tourism Organization.

Sun suggested that countries in the region should further promote market access to each other and increase intraregional tourism.

Experience shows even the most well-known destinations are visited most by travelers from neighboring countries, said Sun, while calling for all Asian nations to promote intraregional tourism visits for developing inbound tourism.

Shipley predicts that East Asian countries will receive 25 per cent of the total of all world travelers by 2020. She proposed to set up a regional organization to co-ordinate tourism alliances and development in Asia.

"We must be able to respond to opportunities or crises in a credible and timely fashion to maintain the confidence of the traveling public," she said.

Besides tourism, delegates of the forum also held concurrent sessions to discuss topics such as energy, the environment and sustainable development, and how to build a win-win model in Asia's manufacturing sector as well as the international financial situation and national monetary policies.

At the plenary session, Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmonov and senior officials from Laos, India, the ROK and China delivered key-note speeches focusing on the theme of the forum, known as Asia Searching for Win-Win: Development through Cooperation.

(China Daily November 4, 2003)