Formulating policies for the tourism industry is the usual and conventional role of Southeast Asian government. This traditional focuses need a change because of changing priorities or the materialization of niche consumer interests to facilitate international tourism. Therefore, the task of national governments is to be integrated by not limiting it only by formulating policies for the tourism sector but also providing deliberate facilities to the local enterprises as well as enforcing policies to develop infrastructure in order to assist tourism development. All of these efforts are to be taken for the benefit not just for tourism but for the whole economy. Financing tourism infrastructure through devising feasible and effective options is the last policy issue needed to be linked for greater interest of tourism. There are also some other aspects of policy needed to refocus covering length of stay and repeat visit intention of tourists to extending entrepreneurship development initiatives. Eventually, it is also inevitable to distinguish and devise the appropriate approaches so that the gains from tourism are spread more uniformly throughout the economy.
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.
The previous two points creates the raise of third point of tourism development perspective, the scenario explicitly revealing that it should not be viewed separately from other aspects of the economy. It is inevitable that there is a need to create institutions at regional, sub-regional and national level for the planning purposes. The lack of political reconciliation, enough resources and proper allocation of these resources in the tourism industry will eventually make the formation of those institutions ineffective. Specifically, many difficulties that arise from developing tourism in the region are the result of unsuccessful mandated policies. The potential advancement of tourism in the region is largely depending on this issue.