In the morning of July 8, 2021, Organization of Tourism Promotion for cities in Asia – Pacific (TPO) hosted the 2nd Webinar, with the participation of representatives of city and organization members. Haiphong city designated Department of Foreign Affairs and Department of Tourism to attend the meeting.
Attendees at the Meeting: Mr. Kim Soo-il, TPO Secretariat, Mr. Harry Hwang, UNWTO Representative, Mr. Rolando Canizal, moderator, leadership representatives of Jeonu and Ulsan cities (South Korea). Photo: Department of Foreign Affairs.
After the opening remark of Mr. Kim Soo-il, TPO Secretary General, on global tourism’s current situation impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, difficulties and countries’ attempts in the epidemic control, vaccination and vaccination certificates at several countries, leadership representatives of the meeting co-hosting cities – Busan, Jeonu, and Ulsan (South Korea) and Pariaman (Indonesia) – shared their cities’ messages regarding common attempts nationally, regionally, and internationally, in recovering economies and handling challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts and other global challenges.
Mr. Harry Hwang shared information on related situation of international travelling and global vaccination. Photo: Department of Foreign Affairs.
The meeting was twofold: i) the first session focusing on two topics including current global vaccination, general information on normalization of international tourism and normalizing measures of international tourism; ii) the second session spent for questions and suggestions from member cities. Indeed, at the first session, Mr. Harry Hwang, Director of Asia – Pacific Region of the United Nations (UNWTO), shared ideas relating to the COVID-19 pandemic’s impacts upon global tourism, global vaccination, outlook on normalization and tourist recovery at global scale. Mr. Hary Hwang also shared activities done by the UNWTO in 2020 (such as the UNWTO organized 09 meetings since March 2020, destination tracker under cooperation between the UNWTO and IATA...). According to Mr. Harry Hwang, in the first quarter of 2021, an international tourist dropped to 83% and has gradually occurred slight improvement; Asia – Pacific region has continued observing a decline of 94%. Thanks to vaccination at many countries, tourism has been improving at some nations; for example, in Europe, digital green certificate raised hope on reconnecting safe travel in the EU’s areas for this summer. This European certificate has been implemented in the EU since the first date of July 2021. Since the first of June 2021, seven member countries of the EU including Czech, Bulgaria, Denmark, Greece, Croatia, Poland, and Germany have implemented the certificate. New variants’ appearance has affected decisions and consultations of countries on regards with travel restrictions and vaccinations in countries. According to data of the UNWTO/IATA, accumulative data on global vaccination increased from 3.3 doses/100 people in February 2021 to 24.9 doses/100 people in May 2021; vaccination rate has been low in Asia (6%) – only higher than in Africa (2%) – and much lower than North America (37%) and Europe (32%). Mr. Harry Hwang mentioned, vaccination implementation of countries might affect countries’ belief on effectiveness of vaccination at countries; thus, building trust among countries was considered as a key element facilitating border-opening process and international travel. Besides, concerns on personal data protection and privacy have been considered mandatory and have needed to be recognized by all parties. To add, in order to guarantee effectiveness in implementation of international tourism’s normalizing measures, consistence and tight cooperation between stakeholders are critical, and certificates of vaccination needs to be interactive and recognized among countries.
Mr. Rolando Canizal, moderator at the meeting, mentioned some normalizing measures of international tourism. Photo: Department of Foreign Affairs.
Amidst the COVID-19 leading to changes in tourist behaviors, it is aware that opportunities have gone with challenges to tourism ongoing time. Question is posed: What will countries do to reopen travel and recover their national economies? Mr. Rolando Canizal, moderator at the meeting, shared some measures to normalize and reopen international tourism during the pandemic. They are to implement consistent policies boosting convenient travelling based on digital vaccine passport/digital certificate on health; tech application to facilitating vaccination confirmation and vaccinated tourists; to build up partnership among countries sharing similar levels of vaccination and low infection rates; to strengthen travel packages with destinations (including quarantine location arrangement...); to raise awareness on safe travelling; to enhance effective public-private partnership; .. Consideration on those measures needs to be grounded on nations’ facts, and identifying concrete timing levels for appropriate middle- and long – term periods.
The 2nd Webinar of TPO occurred on O8th July 2021 with attendees from member cities. Photo: Department of Foreign Affairs.
Contribute to the meeting, representatives of several member cities (Busan of South Korea, Ipoh of Indonesia, Rizhao and Dujangyan of China, Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam) shared their opinions and several measures currently applied for capability enhancement, promotion of infrastructure and reaction system, safe environment establishment.... to facilitate reconnection and support recovery of local tourism./.