For Cooperation in Tourism

Tourism ministers of Korea, China and Japan pledge to take joint steps to invigorate tourism

Tourism ministers of Korea, China and Japan met in Kushiro City in Hokkaido, Japan, June 30- July 3 for the first tourism ministers meeting among the three neighboring countries in Northeast Asia. They discussed a number of key topics in the exchange of tourism among the three countries and other issues to strengthen their cooperation. The delegation from Korea totaled about 50 including performers, officials of travel agencies, cruise operators and local autonomous authorities led by Tourism Culture Minister Kim Myung-gon. China dispatched some 500 government officials and tourism industry representatives, and Japan had some 500 government and prefecture officials and tourism industry executives to the three country tourism meeting designed to invigorate the tourism exchange among the three countries.
Korea, for one, with the belief that the tourism exchange will help the economic and social development of the three countries and furthermore confirming that it is the means to spur international prosperity and peace and has issued the following declaration to promote tourism in the region and strengthen their cooperation.
The declaration said tourism not only gives peace to people, but help promote international understanding as the messenger of peace and a friendly bridge. The regions that tourists visit will see economic benefits, the development of traditional culture handed down from ages and sustainable social development, reconfirming multifaceted aspects of the tourism exchange.
The three countries are geographically closely located each other and have common historic and cultural heritages and their relations have been growing rapidly in many areas, including economy and trade in particular, the statement said.
It went to say that Korea wants to promote mutual understanding and friendship among peoples of the three countries and it is the duty of the tourism ministers of the three countries to expand human exchange with each other. It further said that connecting various exchanges in many other areas among the three countries, including culture and sports, manpower training, cooperation in research activities, and cooperation among local autonomous entities, with tourism is needed for continued human exchange increase and sustainable development in the relations between the three countries.
The declaration went on to say that the three countries form a center of the Asia-Pacific region which is expected to attract a growing number of tourists and they agreed that they should make joint efforts to channel these international tourists to their countries. The statement also called for increased efforts to remove the obstacles in the way of expanding tourism in their countries through the continued exchange of relevant information, which is an effective means to further develop tourism in their countries.
The three tourism ministers pledged to do their best to expand the tourism exchange among their countries under the joint project entitled, "Korea, China, and Japan Tourism Big Bang."Under the project, the three countries will try to expand the number of tourists exchanged among the three countries annually would increase to 17 million to 20 million by 2010 from 12 million in 2005. The ministers also have agreed to meet every summer annually to discuss tourism issues among them.
The big bang project has a number of key objectives to facilitate the expansion of tourism exchange between the three countries. One of them is the operation of cruise ships calling on important ports in the three countries. In order to invigorate cruise tourism, they will regularly exchange relevant information, coordinate tourism policies and set up joint marketing programs. The three countries will participate in major tourism festivities in their countries and the host country will welcome the visitors with favorable programs. One of the festivities is the Cultural Expo scheduled for July on Jeju Island in Korea.
The three countries will work together to operate joint display programs at tourism expos held outside of their countries, in addition to their cooperation in carrying out joint tourism public relations, developing joint tourism products and others. They will work out details of those joint activities in their meetings to be held later.
The importance of a tourism cooperation model developed by the three countries in such areas as youth exchange, the exchange of culture and sports, the cooperation among local autonomous bodies and cooperation in tourism research will be turned over to other countries through such international organizations as the UNWTO, ASEAN+3, and APEC and other multinational and regional cooperative entities.
The three countries will meet again in November, this year on Jeju Island, Korea, to discuss various problems in the way of expanding tourism among them and will also cooperate together to facilitate investment in tourism resource development projects in their countries to strengthen the exchange of tourism on real terms.
To relax regulations on capital movements to develop tourism resources, the three countries will exchange information on tourism and dispatch overseas tourism investment missions and take advantage of such meetings as the Asia-Pacific Tourism Investment Conference scheduled for November in Korea.
Sideline events included the Korea, China, and Japan youth exchange project, the civilian tourism forum participated by tourism people from the three countries, the symposium on the exchange among sister and friendly cities in the three countries and the food fair held in Sapporo City, all intended to invigorate tourism in the three countries.
In the meantime, Korea and Japan held a meeting for the formulation of joint projects to expand tourist exchange between the two countries May 14-16 in Tokyo, Japan.
Culture-Tourism Minister Kim Myung-gon attended the meeting leading three ministry officials including director-general of the tourism bureau Kim Chan. The Korean delegation sought any plans to improve the number of Japanese tourists to Korea, which began to fall from May last year. The delegation sought means to create a boom in Japan for Korean tourism including giving encouragement to Japanese outbound tour agencies and their continued cooperation with their counterparts in Korea.
Minister Kim, in his statement, at the meeting said that the exchange between Korea and Japan not only should be continued, but also expanded, despite the two countries'difference over Dokdo, an islet in the East Sea. Both countries claim rights over the rocky islet. The minister in an interview with NHK TV stressed that the tourism exchange expansion is needed now more than ever for understanding and friendship shared by the peoples of the two neighboring countries. He said it is difficult to share opinions with the people of the closest neighbor country, but it is critical to share opinions through the tourism exchange.
In the meantime, Japan has been accelerating its efforts to attract increasing number of Korean tourists in a bid to expand the non-political sector relations with Korea. The Visit Japan Campaign has been pushed strongly with the extensive support from Prime Minister Koizumi and his cabinet members.
Japan waived visas for visitors from Korea if their stay in Japan does not exceed 90 days at a time. The move was taken due to the strong lobby by the prefecture chiefs to attract an increasing number of inbound tourists from Korea. Japan is expected to relax the visa requirement for Chinese visitors, soon, too.
Japan has set the target of attracting 2 million Korean tourists this year from 1.74 million last year and has allocated 620 million yen to achieve the target. Korea has also been trying to entice as many Japanese tourists as it can this year with the budget of 1.6 billion won allocated by the Korea Tourism Organization.
Tourism ministers of both Korea and Japan have agreed to cooperate each other based on the results of the Korea-Japan Friendship Year events held last year, which expanded the exchange of culture and tourism between the countries. They also agreed that the cultural and other civilian exchange should continued to expanded despite the political differences between the two countries. nw

(Right photo) A scene from Korean, Chinese and Japanese tourism ministers'meeting held June 30-July 3 in Kushiro City, Hokkaido, Japan; Chinese Tourism Minister Shao Qiwei, left, Japanese Tourism Minister Kazuo Kitakawa, middle, and Korean Culture and Tourism Minister Kim Myung-gon at the meeting.