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.