Essentially, tourism is now considered as an export-oriented international economic activity. The view of
Ong Keng Yong, the Secretary-General of ASEAN, is instructive this regard. He emphasized that
“Tourism is an important sector of our economies…tourism provides employment, helps to improve the
quality of lives and promotes friendship, to create networking and widening of the perspectives among
nations. This sector is important not only in generating valuable foreign exchange revenues but also in
assisting to showcase the diversity and richness of the various cultures and peoples in Southeast Asia.”
This paper thus identifies and analyses some factors of those strategies that are consistent to achieve the
long-term sustainable tourism development in the context of Southeast Asian economies. Due diligence is
to be paid to these facts due to their importance in organizing, and shaping tourism industry in Southeast
Asia in order to realize a coordinated and supportive tourism development policy in practice.
First, When tourism industry develops, the nature of it becomes complex. Therefore, a framework of
strategic management requires – the absence of which may jeopardize the objective of developing tourism
industry. This strategic management process should be delineated to mitigate and minimize the adverse
impacts to ensure that tourism development is supporting national policy objectives, thus, the aim of
maximizing the benefits is realized. In addition, the tourism development should be backed by marked
influx of foreign financial and personnel resources. But governments need to be conscientious regarding
foreign injections. This is because too much foreign involvement may have an adverse impact on the host
country government’s decision-making sovereignty. This may lead to intimidating the long-term
sustainability and economic viability of the tourism sector. Correspondingly, it is hoped that the function
of government organizations and policymakers may not create any trouble in advancing tourism sector so
that the economic impacts of tourism are to be felt at all levels of the economy.
Secondly, considering the anticipated future of international tourism in Southeast Asia, it is important for
the corresponding government to ensure that the industry is not treated trivially than it warrant while it
should not be delicately kept apart. In spite of the rising concern on the adverse impacts of developing
tourism in a region, there is rising evidence that the positive developmental aspects of tourism have
influenced strongly to Southeast Asian governments to promote this industry as part of their economic
development strategy. Hence, merits of tourism have been included in the national economic development
plans of most of the Southeast Asian nations.