APEC tourism ministers to “ensure sustainable and inclusive growth”

Adop­ted at the APEC High Level Policy Dia­logue on Sus­tain­able Tour­ism held in Quang Ninh province, Viet­nam, June 19, the state­ment emphas­ised the role of “high value tour­ists” in stim­u­lat­ing eco­nom­ic growth and fos­ter­ing con­nectiv­ity and describes tour­ism has hav­ing a gen­er­ally “pos­it­ive effect on poverty reduc­tion and inclus­ive growth by cre­at­ing jobs and entre­pren­eur­i­al oppor­tun­it­ies across a wide spec­trum of skills and pro­du­cing a pos­it­ive impact on the devel­op­ment of remote areas”.

The state­ment con­tin­ued:  “As APEC is start­ing to shape its post-2020 vis­ion, we under­score the sig­ni­fic­ance of sus­tain­able tour­ism as an import­ant driver for region­al eco­nom­ic integ­ra­tion and sus­tain­able, innov­at­ive and inclus­ive growth. Sus­tain­able tour­ism helps strengthen con­nectiv­ity, includ­ing to sub-regions and remote areas; pro­mote eco­nom­ic, fin­an­cial and social inclu­sion; address envir­on­ment­al degrad­a­tion and pol­lu­tion; con­serve and man­age nat­ur­al resources and biod­iversity; improve waste man­age­ment; and pro­mote invest­ment and cul­tur­al exchange.”

The tour­ism min­is­ters’ state­ment then “strongly” sup­ports 11 “prin­ciples and pro­posed actions”.

The fol­low­ing is the full text of the “2017 APEC HIGH LEVEL STATEMENT”:

Promoting Sustainable Tourism for an Inclusive and Interconnected Asia-Pacific

We, APEC Tour­ism Min­is­ters and seni­or rep­res­ent­at­ives, met at the APEC High Level Policy Dia­logue on Sus­tain­able Tour­ism in Ha Long, Viet­nam on June 19, 2017. The Dia­logue, held in con­junc­tion with, and sup­port of the United Nations 2017 Inter­na­tion­al Year of Sus­tain­able Tour­ism for Devel­op­ment, was chaired by H.E. Nguy­en Ngoc Thi­en, Min­is­ter of Cul­ture, Sports and Tour­ism of Vietnam.

Under the APEC 2017 theme “Cre­at­ing New Dynam­ism, Fos­ter­ing a Shared Future”, we focused our delib­er­a­tions on “pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able tour­ism for an inclus­ive and inter­con­nec­ted Asia-Pacific” with a view to fur­ther enhan­cing APEC cooper­a­tion on sus­tain­able and inclus­ive devel­op­ment in the region.

We wel­come the imple­ment­a­tion of the Lima Declar­a­tion on Con­nect­ing Asia-Pacific Tour­ism through Travel Facil­it­a­tion, the APEC Travel Facil­it­a­tion Ini­ti­at­ive and the APEC Con­nectiv­ity Blue Print for 2015 — 2025. We sup­port a more con­nec­ted Asia-Pacific region that facil­it­ates effi­cient and secure travel in order to reach the tar­get of 800 mil­lion inter­na­tion­al tour­ist arrivals in APEC eco­nom­ies by 2025 advoc­ated at the 8th APEC Tour­ism Min­is­ters’ Meet­ing in 2014. We note with sat­is­fac­tion that in 2016, APEC des­tin­a­tions received 415 mil­lion inter­na­tion­al tour­ists – an increase of 24 mil­lion tour­ists or 6.1% from 2015, accord­ing to the United Nations World Tour­ism Organization.

We appre­ci­ate the ded­ic­a­tion of the Tour­ism Work­ing Group (TWG) to effect­ively imple­ment the APEC TWG Stra­tegic Plan 2015 — 2019 (ATSP), espe­cially in the four pri­or­ity areas:

1. Pro­mote bet­ter under­stand­ing and recog­ni­tion of tour­ism as an engine for eco­nom­ic growth and prosper­ity in the APEC region;
2. Ensure sus­tain­able and inclus­ive growth in the travel and tour­ism sec­tor by encour­aging socially and cul­tur­ally respons­ible tourism;
3. Pro­mote labor, skills devel­op­ment and cer­ti­fic­a­tion through increased cooper­a­tion in order to devel­op the tour­ism work­force in the region; and
4. Pro­mote com­pet­it­ive­ness and region­al eco­nom­ic integ­ra­tion through policy align­ment and struc­tur­al reform.

We reit­er­ate the sig­ni­fic­ant role of tour­ism, and par­tic­u­larly high value tour­ists, in stim­u­lat­ing eco­nom­ic growth and fos­ter­ing con­nectiv­ity. In 2016 travel and tour­ism dir­ectly con­trib­uted USD 1.3 tril­lion to the APEC region’s GDP, sup­por­ted 67 mil­lion jobs dir­ectly and con­trib­uted 6.1% of the region’s exports. Moreover, every 10% increase in tour­ist arrivals in APEC eco­nom­ies is asso­ci­ated with a 1.2% increase in exports and a 0.8% increase in imports in the des­tin­a­tion eco­nomy. Travel and tour­ism stim­u­lates entre­pren­eur­ship and the growth of MSMEs, sup­port­ing eco­nom­ic diver­si­fic­a­tion and cre­at­ing jobs across sec­tors. Tour­ism gen­er­ally has a pos­it­ive effect on poverty reduc­tion and inclus­ive growth by cre­at­ing jobs and entre­pren­eur­i­al oppor­tun­it­ies across a wide spec­trum of skills and pro­du­cing a pos­it­ive impact on the devel­op­ment of remote areas.

The Asia-Pacific is at a cru­cial junc­ture of trans­form­a­tion amidst a fast chan­ging glob­al land­scape. The digit­al age and the 4th Indus­tri­al Revolu­tion are hav­ing an unpre­ced­en­ted impact on the way people live, work, travel and recre­ate. As APEC is start­ing to shape its post-2020 vis­ion, we under­score the sig­ni­fic­ance of sus­tain­able tour­ism as an import­ant driver for region­al eco­nom­ic integ­ra­tion and sus­tain­able, innov­at­ive and inclus­ive growth. Sus­tain­able tour­ism helps strengthen con­nectiv­ity, includ­ing to sub-regions and remote areas; pro­mote eco­nom­ic, fin­an­cial and social inclu­sion; address envir­on­ment­al degrad­a­tion and pol­lu­tion; con­serve and man­age nat­ur­al resources and biod­iversity; improve waste man­age­ment; and pro­mote invest­ment and cul­tur­al exchange.

In this con­nec­tion, we strongly sup­port the prin­ciples and pro­posed actions that follow:

• Acknow­ledge that sus­tain­able tour­ism devel­op­ment is a con­tinu­ous pro­cess that requires con­stant impact mon­it­or­ing, intro­duc­tion of pre­vent­ive or cor­rect­ive meas­ures when neces­sary, and full con­sid­er­a­tion of its cur­rent and future eco­nom­ic, social and envir­on­ment­al implic­a­tions, while address­ing the needs of vis­it­ors, the industry, the envir­on­ment and host communities.
• Foster region­al and domest­ic tour­ism policies that sup­port the Sus­tain­able Devel­op­ment Goals (SDGs), par­tic­u­larly Goals 8, 12 and 14 on inclus­ive and sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth, sus­tain­able con­sump­tion and pro­duc­tion, and sus­tain­able use of oceans, seas and mar­ine envir­on­ment not­ing that sus­tain­able tour­ism can con­trib­ute to all SDGs due to its cross-cut­ting nature.
• Encour­age viable, long-term eco­nom­ic con­tri­bu­tions of travel and tour­ism in provid­ing socio-eco­nom­ic bene­fits to all stake­hold­ers, includ­ing stable employ­ment, income-earn­ing oppor­tun­it­ies and social ser­vices to host com­munit­ies, and con­trib­ute to poverty alleviation.
• Respect socio-cul­tur­al authen­ti­city of host com­munit­ies, con­serve their built and liv­ing cul­tur­al her­it­age and tra­di­tion­al val­ues, and con­trib­ute to inter-cul­tur­al under­stand­ing and tolerance.
• Make optim­al use of envir­on­ment­al resources that con­sti­tute a key ele­ment in tour­ism devel­op­ment, main­tain­ing essen­tial eco­lo­gic­al pro­cesses and help­ing to con­serve nat­ur­al fea­tures and resources, and biodiversity.
• Encour­age a con­sumer-led demand for sus­tain­able tour­ism prac­tices and products, pro­mote pub­lic-private part­ner­ship as a key instru­ment to devel­op sus­tain­able tour­ism infra­struc­ture and ser­vices, and foster loc­al com­munit­ies and private sec­tor par­ti­cip­a­tion in the tour­ism value chains.
• Cre­ate com­pet­it­ive and enabling envir­on­ments for all tour­ism-related enter­prises, and par­tic­u­larly MSMEs, who are more likely to hire loc­ally and gen­er­ate jobs that are less skill-intens­ive, thus help­ing to pro­mote inclus­ive­ness in the tour­ism sec­tor. MSMEs can also help pro­mote innov­a­tion in tour­ism when provided with access to adequate fin­ance, skills and glob­al markets.
• Con­duct fur­ther stud­ies to enable APEC eco­nom­ies to adapt to, and cap­it­al­ize on, the changes made by the new advanced tech­no­lo­gies for smart, sus­tain­able and inclus­ive tour­ism devel­op­ment, espe­cially in tour­ism human resource devel­op­ment and tour­ism management.
• Encour­age the TWG to: 
  1. focus on eco­nom­ic, fin­an­cial and social sus­tain­ab­il­ity and inclu­sion in its future work, as travel and tour­ism is uniquely able to provide oppor­tun­it­ies across APEC economies;
  2. lever­age con­nectiv­ity to increase inclus­ive growth by allow­ing tour­ism to reach more geo­graph­ic areas with­in economies;
  3. con­sider the estab­lish­ment of a net­work of sus­tain­able, inclus­ive and integ­rated tour­ism des­tin­a­tions among APEC mem­ber economies;
  4. work with oth­er APEC fora and rel­ev­ant inter­na­tion­al and region­al organ­iz­a­tions to share best prac­tices and foster syn­er­gies in pro­mot­ing sus­tain­able tour­ism growth; and
  5. high­light best prac­tices of APEC eco­nom­ies in meas­ure­ment and mon­it­or­ing meth­od­o­lo­gies that are under­taken to enhance sus­tain­able tourism.
• Encour­age the TWG to explore and devel­op fur­ther policy dir­ec­tions to pro­mote sus­tain­able tour­ism to enhance the aware­ness of the bene­fits of sus­tain­able tour­ism among busi­nesses, host com­munit­ies and tourists.
• Recog­nize sus­tain­able tour­ism as a rel­ev­ant and import­ant area of cooper­a­tion in APEC’s cur­rent and future agenda, and encour­age the TWG to work closely with oth­er APEC fora dur­ing the devel­op­ment of an APEC post-2020 vision.

We seek APEC Lead­ers’ con­sid­er­a­tion to include in their 2017 Declar­a­tion a state­ment on the import­ance of sus­tain­able tour­ism as a driver for region­al eco­nom­ic integ­ra­tion, sus­tain­able and inclus­ive eco­nom­ic growth, and an import­ant means for pro­mot­ing fur­ther busi­ness devel­op­ment and job cre­ation, eco­nom­ic, fin­an­cial and social inclu­sion, enhan­cing con­nectiv­ity with a view to build­ing a peace­ful, stable, dynam­ic, resi­li­ent, inclus­ive and seam­less Asia-Pacific com­munity for the people and businesses.

We stress the import­ance of pur­su­ing closer col­lab­or­a­tion with rel­ev­ant inter­na­tion­al and region­al organ­iz­a­tions related to sus­tain­able tour­ism devel­op­ment, par­tic­u­larly the United Nations World Tour­ism Organ­iz­a­tion, Asso­ci­ation of South­east Asi­an Nations, and the Inter­na­tion­al Air Trans­port Association.

We appre­ci­ate the efforts and con­tri­bu­tion of the APEC Sec­ret­ari­at, the TWG Lead Shep­herd and Deputy Lead Shep­herd in ensur­ing the suc­cess of the Dia­logue. We sin­cerely thank Viet Nam for the warm hos­pit­al­ity and arrange­ments for the Dia­logue. We look for­ward to the 10th APEC Tour­ism Min­is­teri­al Meet­ing hos­ted by Pap­ua New Guinea in 2018.