Branding Southeast Asia Tourism

Copyright © 2009 by Chester B Cabalza (Abstract). All Rights Reserved.

Tourism is known to be the world’s largest industry to date especially in the age of globalization. The positive side of promoting the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a single destination would mean a stronger cooperation and higher tourism receipts for the organization. In the renaissance of tourism industry in the region, ten-member countries of ASEAN are selling its tourist destinations like “brands” to the world. Massively advertising these hot items to all forms of local and international communications using tri-media and the internet to capture western as well as wealthy neighboring Northeast Asian tourists. This is to recognize that ASEAN tourism receipts are equivalent to almost ten percent of exports and five percent of regional economic activity. The paper shall also explore the varying threats like the current global economic meltdown, the inevitable effects of man-made and natural disasters such as terrorism and catastrophes, and the challenges of climate change as major problems to the tourism industry in the region. It eyes the benefits of ecotourism and ethnic tourism, the prominence of bird tourism, and the burgeoning market of medical tourism as examples of opportunities. The paper shall use data mining from secondary sources like scholarly books and journals, and the internet as references for the research. Based from this method, textual analysis and critical examination shall be drawn from to substantiate empirical data and guided by multi-disciplinal frameworks.