Integrated Asian tours pushed

Thursday, September 15, 2011By Mia A. Aznar

TO ATTRACT a bigger global market, a tourism professor said an integrated tour package among Asian countries will benefit the region.

Jae Hee Jung, professor of the department of tourism and English of Hallyn College in Korea, said there are new forms of tourism and that focusing on educational tourism could help bring in more western tourists to the east.

Jae suggested coming up with tour packages that group similar characteristics of Asian provinces.

Jae made this proposal during the East Asia Inter-Regional Tourism Forum (Eatof) Wednesday. Cebu is hosting this year’s Eatof, which consists of 12 provinces around East Asia.

The program, he believes, will pave the way for a new tourism campaign, which he coined “Awesome Asia.”

Jae said he is always surprised at the many interesting things he finds from different provinces.

“We should let the whole world know. We should get out of the barriers of Asia. There is a big market out there,” he told reporters.

As an example, he noted how Australians spend much to visit countries that can offer them a variety of winter and summer sports.

He said that instead of them going to North America, they can pay for one package that can take them to Cebu in the Philippines, Gangwon in South Korea and Tuttori in Japan, and they can experience nine days of winter and summer sports activities. This package can also be offered to Europeans craving similar activities.

The same approach could be provided for festivals, healing tourism and volunteer tourism.

Volunteer tourism, he said, can also be a viable tour package and that tourists experience helping communities, by building homes for the poor, planting trees and cleaning up beaches.

In Korea, he noted activities that tourists enjoy but also allow them to experience local culture. He said activities like kimchi making and temple stays are gaining popularity in Korea, with many foreigners experiencing life as a Buddhist.

In Chuncheon, he also noted a story-telling tour where Korean language is taught while walking about the city and information on local culture and history is also explained.

Gangwon also has a sports academy.

He believes such programs can become popular with a global audience.

Jae feels educational tour programs is an effective way of attracting morre tourists and is an alternative form of sustainable tourism.

Aside from reaching out to tourists outside of Asia, Jae proposed that Eatof-member countries can also arrange for cultural exchanges each year.

He also hopes Eatof member provinces can come up with a tourism research and education center so that studies on tourism can be made. The center, he said, can serve as a collaboration project between member provinces.

Published in the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on September 16, 2011.