Tourism Breaking News
The ‘Bouncing back: tourism strategies for the future’ session at ATM Virtual, which took place on June 2, discussed the long-term tourism development strategies put in place by the region’s governments to provide a catalyst to recovery when travel patterns return to relative normality. Keith Tan, CEO, Singapore Tourism Board said, “We are trying to do things at a bilateral level with countries that we feel we can move forward with. We have announced initiatives such as ‘green lanes’ and introduced the idea of ‘travel bubbles’. For example, in our negotiations with China, we have agreed common standards to permit travel and we hope to replicate this with other countries, not dissimilar to the idea of free trade agreements.”
“We look at the tourism sector from a strategic perspective in Saudi Arabia, but we also realise that this sector contributed 20% of all jobs in the last five years, across the world, underscoring the importance that must be placed on the sector by governments,” said Fahd Hamidaddin, Chief of Investment, Strategy and Tourism Marketing, Ministry of Tourism Saudi Arabia.
“Our job is to help the private sector survive and weather as much as we can during this pandemic. As such, Saudi Arabia launched a US$61 billion stimulus package that went into multiple tracks, including waiving licensing and tourism fees as well as deferring VAT and government fees for all SMEs, helping those most in need,” he added.
“As early as February, we had announced the formation of the Tourism Recovery Action taskforce, comprising private sector individuals and key players from within the government. This was designed to layout plans, not only for recovery, but crisis communications, how we engage with the sector, and how we translate the advisories and directives from the health ministry to the tourism sector. This has proven to be very effective,” said Tan.
