Regional Tourism Development in Southeast Asia
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terms of international tourists’ arrivals and receipts albeit not that shocking. Among the other features of
tourism, International tourism faces severe downturns with international events while intra-regional and
domestic tourism are not that prone to international events. The positive growth of tourists’ receipts in
Southeast Asian nations during these international events is the support of this fact. Hence, it can be
pointed out that intra-regional tourism is less vulnerable than international tourism in the viewpoint of
international events. In this aspect, intra-regional tourism is a cushion for developing economies of
Southeast Asia although tourism is fragile to international events. It is evident that because of the strong
growth of this intra-regional tourism among the Southeast Asian economies, the effects of international
events, such as 9/11, Iraq invasion, tsunami, on the tourism industry in this region was less severe than
other regions of the world. Intra-regional tourism also constitutes a significant portion of tourist arrivals
within the Southeast Asian economies. For example, in 2004, intra-ASEAN visitor arrivals were 23
million (ASEAN NTO’s) which constituted 46% of total visitor arrivals.