Earlier this year ten Southeast Asian countries launched a new tourism campaign built around the slogan, Southeast Asia: feel the warmth.
The campaign, officially supported by the 10 Asean (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) tourism ministers at the Asean Tourism Forum held in Brunei in January, aims to target tourists in medium and long-haul markets such as the UK, Australia, India, North America and Hong Kong.
Southeast Asia: feel the warmth and SoutheastAsia.org, the website being used to promote it, emphasise the warmth of Southeast Asia’s hospitality and climate and the diversity of the region’s cultural attractions and tourism activities.
The ten participating countries are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.
Announcing the campaign Pehin Dato Yahya, Brunei’s Minister of Industry and Primary Resource said it had been built on four principles - the fact that ‘Southeast Asia’ has greater recognition in international source markets than Asean, the trust online consumers now put in meta-search tools and user-generated content, the importance of authenticity and ‘warmth’ in travellers’ decision making processes and the tremendous opportunities Southeast Asia offers in niche themes such as culture, adventure, shopping, ecotourism, island holidays, train travel, spa, culinary experiences and river and sea cruises.
The campaign was jointly created by Asean Tourism Association and the Asean Competitiveness Enhancement (Ace) office in collaboration with the ten Asean member countries and the region’s national tourism organisations played a key role at each stage of the brand and campaign development.
As part of the roll-out, the Asean Tourism Association, with support from national tourism offices, is to establish an Asean Tourism Marketing Centre, initially within the Ace project in Bangkok.