KUCHING: Asean countries should work together to bring more low-cost airlines to the region, said Assistant Minister of Tourism Hamden Ahmad.

He said as it was the commitment of Asean countries to fully implement the Open Skies Policy by 2015, encouraging more low-cost carriers to service the region was proper.

This, along with the policy to ease border restrictions like a visa-free policy for Asean nationals travelling within its ten-member countries, would help boost tourism growth in the region, he said.

“Joint tourism promotion efforts would be beneficial to Asean countries to ensure that we continue to share the available resources and expertise,” he said at a dinner hosted by the Ministry of Urban Development and Tourism for delegates of the Asean Task Force Meetings at a hotel here on Friday.

He said if every Asean country could undertake joint promotions (with any fellow member country) in terms of packages, such as combining different destinations in the region, Asean would be in a strong position to attract more visitors.

Earlier on, Hamden said that the Tourism Industry was one of the main contributors to Malaysia’s economic development.

He said international visitor arrivals to Asean countries totalled more than 50.8 million by the end of 2005, reflecting an increase of more than 4.8 per cent since 2004.

He said that Malaysia had the highest international visitor arrivals of all Asean countries, from 15,703,496 in 2004 to 16,431,055 in 2005, making it the fastest growing market in the region.

As such, he said the Sarawak government would always be prepared to work together with member countries to promote tourism either through Sosek Malindo, BIMP-Eaga, Asean or Eatof.

“Through Asean, we should cooperate rather than compete with each other, to develop our tourism industries,” he added.

Meanwhile, he hoped the delegates of this task-force meetings would explore the different diversities in Sarawak like for instance in its ethnicity, flora and fauna, cultures and even music, while in the state.

This Asean Task Force is meeting in Kuching for three days beginning Nov 21, as a preparatory meeting for the 29th Asean Meeting which is to be held in Vietnam in January.

There are basically six task forces and they focus on manpower development, tourism marketing namely Asean standards, Asean cruise working group, Asean crisis communications, Asean Investment, Asean Budget Working Group and Asean Tourism Integration.

Asean or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations was established on Aug 8, 1967 in Bangkok by the five original member countries namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Phillipines, Singapore and Thailand.

Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar and Cambodia joined later.