 Well, good morning ladies, gentlemen, excellencies, my name is Tech Hez and I'm the Director for Travel and Tourism at the World Economic Forum. This is a pleasure to have you here and welcome you to the session. The session actually follows through a very long debate. We had the day before yesterday in a high level meeting with the ministers and the private sector. So I will not take too much time, but needless to say this work and the work and the conclusions that we've come to are part of the World Economic Forum's Global Agenda Council on New Models for Travel and Tourism. So with that, I'll pass it on to our moderator, Geoffrey, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, chair, and good morning and welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to what we would like to be a very interactive discussion today between you and our panel here. We have what might be called one of the hot topics of the country and of the region, and that is basically travel and tourism as a driver of a sustainable future. And we have an excellent panel with us today. I'll just go from my left. I'm not going to make bio introductions. You have programs. Tony Fernandez, you know, who is the brilliant founder of AirAsia, and if you don't know that he's the founder of AirAsia, he'll be putting his hat on in a minute to let you know. And a host of other related industries, including Queen's Park Rangers Football Club, which is his passion. Minister Marie Pangestu, who is the Minister of Tourism and Creative Industries for the Republic of Indonesia, and is well known as a speaker for this region and for her country in the international arena. Our host, Minister Uhtay Hung, who is the Minister of Hotels and Tourism for Myanmar, and we were talking before, who has for the, certainly the last year, year and a half been quietly going around international meetings in order to position his country and his vision and the country's vision as a tourism player of a different kind than it has been in its recent history. Minister Jiménez from the Republic of the Philippines, who was telling us before that he's relatively new to the ministerial world. He perfectly epitomizes the forum because he's had a career in business. And last but not least, to ensure that we have a critical dimension in our thinking here is Sebastian Morrow, who's the Executive Director of Friends International, which is one of these incredible NGOs, which is doing serially good things in respect of children and education throughout this region and increasingly around the world. So ladies and gentlemen, it's a great panel. The last thing you want is a long speech from a moderator. So I'll make two or three points. We are here to talk about the region, but clearly we're here at a critical moment and a wonderfully wonderful moment in the evolution of our host country. Because it's a real example of a country with a chance to move rapidly from the backwaters to the mainstream of international affairs in the middle of one of the most dynamic regions. You've heard this said so many times, but from a tourism dimension in the middle of a region which has 500 million anxious potential visitors to your beautiful country minister. And this transformation is coming at a time when the world is moving in this direction to become orient centric, when the BRICS countries are starting to become the leaders of our world, and when everything is hyper connected, the good things and the bad things. And we're all here, I think, that because we support this progressive transformation, we're all here because we understand that travel and tourism is a huge industry. Five to ten percent of GDP for and jobs and trade. And here is a country where it's a much smaller percentage minister. I'll leave that to you, but has a potential to move to those levels with all of the transformational benefits that that can do to in terms of education, bringing a country into a world nation building. It's a huge opportunity. And it's got a key challenge. How do you balance the good against the potential bad? There's a massive impact in terms of sheer numbers, infrastructure, carbon footprint, resource consumption, things that it's easy to say, but if you don't get at them at the right time, which can drag you back in terrible ways. How do you do this in a coherent measured way? We seem to have all the numbers on the growth side. We don't seem to have the numbers on the green side. We don't always put them together. And last but not least, how do you do that while you safeguard the authenticity and the beauty of a country like this and a region like this, where the key is the culture, the history, and the people? So that's the nature of the debate. And without any more to do, I will introduce the minister from Myanmar. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Jeffrey. And also, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all of the audience here for joining with us. Firstly, I would like to talk to Mr. Jeffrey because, you know, on the 5th, when we started the travel and tourism high-level meeting, especially in the last section, he named me, I am the master chef of this program, and he gave me the guiding principle for sustainable tourism development in Myanmar. So this guidance cover not only the public sector, but also the private sector, which is very, very useful for the sustainable development of Myanmar. But I don't think he is a palmistry or, you know, a predictor or something like that. But his prediction became very true in a very short moment because last night our president hosted the dinner. I was already occupied only in the kitchen with the staff because, you know, one side is the most, you know, we have three categories. One is the hat keyboard. Second is the VIP, just like the minister, lover and high, you know, investor or something like that. And then the rest, all the rest of the participants. So we have to surf on table on time. And then we delegate our staff to take care of the buffet. But, you know, when we start the program, our staff, this is the first, what we call, experience on such kind of the big dinner, especially in Nepal, especially in, I can say, Myanmar. Because, you know, all together 1,200 guests are sitting. So that's why his prediction is very true. And I was almost occupied in the kitchen. And when the dinner was finished, I had a dinner at 9.30 with my staff. So you're very true. So let me get to the point because the time is very limited. Today you see the growth of Myanmar because of the openness, because of the transparency. So that's why the world is curious about Myanmar. And I can say that the world is in Nepal. So we are very happy to see like that. We are very happy to welcome like that. We are very happy to receive such kind of participation in it. You know, the growth is not given a positive impact on tourism. You can see, you can also see the negative impact at the same time on the other side. This is the nature of tourism which has a double swash impact. So that's why we have to be see double as impact. So we have to be careful on that. So according to our figures, last year we received 1.06 million, which was a record in Myanmar tourism industry. Then we will be, this year also we have been receiving with a growth of 40%. But we want to get more because of the nature of human being. We all are very great. So today we want to get more. So when they check our paper, the master plan, you know, our friends say it is too ambitious. You have to be careful on the negative impacts, something in terms of economics, in terms of social, in terms of environmental. So yes, I said, but I cannot avoid it because, you know, we all, we all wanted to welcome all the visitors as much as we could. So this is, this is, but my explanation is, Myanmar is not a small country. Myanmar is not a city state. Myanmar has the size of more than 600,000 square kilometer. So we can handle it. There are some countries in the region like 3 million, 4 million, but we have only 1 million right now. So that's why we want to get more visitors to come over to Myanmar. We can also say I have 3 million, I have 5 million, not only myself but also the leaders. You know, the leaders want to say like that. So today our discussion with the private sector from the YGL, with our president, you know, when they ask for tourism, he is also very happy to say that, to say like what we want to get more, not only the tourists but also the investors. So this is the point that we have. For this purpose, we are in the age of infancy. I have seen not only the positive but also the negative. So simply speaking, we are not educated in tourism, not like the experts. But we need the living documents for the country. That's why the first thing is, I did the responsible tourism policy which has already published. And this is also, we get the guiding principles for the sustainable development of tourism. We intend to use tourism to make Myanmar people to get a better life to live in. At the same time, we also want to enjoy our visitors, to see our way of life, to feel our warm welcome, to enjoy our cultural and natural heritage. And to pay respect our people. This is what we want to do. So this is the mission of this responsible tourism policy. Then I would like to give the reality of our customs, our traditions, you know, because it's totally different. Yesterday when the Vietnamese guy wants to take a photo with me and he say that he want to put his hand on my shoulder, according to our custom, it is a little bit rude. But I don't want to say anything. Okay, just let it be. So this is the nature. And also, you know, if you are talking with other people in the room or just like a student, students, you know, in other areas, they put the legs on the chair or some people, they put the leg on the table. This is not the style of Myanmar. It is very rude. We always respect to our teachers. So we never want to do like that. So this is the different. But it is not what we call bad things. You know, when you want to receive, you have to see like these natures. But we have to, we have to let them know about the traditions and customs and stuff. So when you are talking about homestay, so I said, we wait for a while. We are in the ASEAN. We have to be complying with our, our friends in the region. But we said, according to our traditions, we don't want to do like that. Yeah. But maybe in, now we are doing, especially in the remote areas, for tracking, for tracking, for climbing, something like that in the very dense forest area. So at that, at that time, okay, we allowed them to stay at the local residence, something like that. This is the one thing. So that's why I did a do's and don'ts. Do's and don'ts for international visitors to get, you know, our information in advance. Then I go to the community involvement in tourism. This is also the very useful for the people to understand. Not only the visitors. I have to, I have to educate and convince the, all the people, not the public, private and the people in the community to understand about. Jeffrey said, good and bad. I said also the ugly. The good, the bad and the ugly. You see, that's why it can be happened like that in the, in our tourism industry. So I have already published all these, you know, papers and, you know, distributed to our state and division. They are 14 states and divisions in our country with different national races. They have to be aware of such kind of community, developed community involvement in tourism. One day, at present, now they are the decision maker. They have to feel the good and the bad if they make mistakes. So this is also very important. So I did it. I distributed it. I delivered it. And I am also explaining to them at the planning commission for national planning meeting, something like that, with the president, with the cabinet ministers and all the chief ministers across the country. So when they came here, I explained to them about the book. It is already finished. Then with the assistant of the Norwegian government and ADB, the master plan will be coming up soon. The draft is already completed, but I said just wait for a while. I want to present this. This is not the launching. This is just to present to the people across the world to let them know about, you know, what sectors we should be put in, what sectors we should be deleted, what important facts we have to be put in. So that is why the professor came down to Myanmar. Then we already presented about the master plan. So I got all the feedback from my friends. So I am very thankful to all of you for this support. So minister, if I am sorry, if I may, I don't want to stop you in full stride, but just if I can follow the logic of this, part of this is for your own people. Part of this is for the visitors. You started with the responsibility part. You brought the community in. You brought the cabinet and your other ministers in. You then unveiled a strategic plan three days ago when we came here. You brought the international tourism community together to comment on this. And that is the stage where we are now. You are a master chef. In fact, you have been cooking this meal. You are a sous chef. To the president, of course, you are a sous chef. But you have been cooking this meal for some time. And we will come back to it, if I may, if that works for you. Because I would like to move to minister Jiménez and ask, as you look at the Philippines, which is a country in a totally different, a different situation and a different position. And you don't have the ability to have this blank page to start from. And nor do you have the ability to introduce things in a step-by-step measured way, as we've heard from the minister. How are you going to, how are you dealing with this issue? Well, as you might imagine, like many countries in Asia, you begin with a general assumption that you understand almost instinctively what it is to be a host. And that is, if you will, where the Philippines kind of started. It began with, if you will, a kind of a painful realization that successful hosting is not automatically successful tourism. And that, in fact, our point of view must begin with a fundamental strategy. And that's the commitment that inclusiveness is not the end result, Jeffrey. It is the strategy. A successful tourism program begins by deciding whom to include, what communities have the highest propensity to succeed. And then you move forward, because if you begin with inclusiveness, you will end with it. This was, believe it or not, a very difficult realization, because for all our great hospitality, and it is legend, you know, that's why we insist it's more fun in the Philippines. We realized that fun must be a combination of the capability to transform that, as President Aquino said, into more than just counting Koreans coming out of an airplane. It must result very directly in the jobs that it will create for our people and the opportunities that that presents. At the same time, it must, in fact, very boldly and very loudly say that we are not going to destroy our country in the process of welcoming the world to it. And this is very difficult. This famous island called Boracay is now the focus of some tremendous relearning. And in fact, we are determined to sustain it precisely because this is the place at the same time that we are welcoming tourists. We are now building what we hope will be the world's most successful coral farm. We have found a way to regrow coral in the Philippines, and we are starting that in Boracay itself. So that tourism sees us to be a threat, but an opportunity for us to learn more and more. And I believe I said in earlier discussions, tourism is an iterative exercise. You learn as you go. It's like riding a bike. You can't learn to ride a bike by reading a book. You just do it and you learn. And you keep your fingers crossed and hope as we do that the mistakes you make are not irreversible and that the opportunities that you are able to seize are the ones that will sustain you in the future. And maybe more about that later. But in the ASEAN context, it's exactly the same thing. Participation means everybody. Thank you, Jeff. Thank you. Minister Pangestu, both from the perspective of Indonesia and from the ASEAN perspective, you share the same view as Minister Jimenez? Yeah, I think at first I'd like to congratulate Minister Aung for, I think, a process that we would all envy to be able to learn so much from others and start, if you like, with a blank page and to have a huge learning experience, lessons learned from other countries. And I think the most important lesson is, again, similar to what Minister from Philippines was saying, that how do you prioritize the tourism sector so that it's not just the tourism minister who's doing the cooking. Yeah. It has to be that we are probably preparing the menu and doing the cooking, but it requires a lot of other ministries and other stakeholders to be included, because otherwise it just doesn't work. You know, and I think that's the revolution or thinking that I have seen myself, just even though I've only been Minister of Tourism for the last one and a half years. This kind of whole-of-government approach to tourism has increasingly become the norm. And I think the turning point is when the United States of America came up with their national tourism action plan in May of last year. I mean, for a country like the U.S. which never even had a tourism anywhere in the federal government, this was quite a revolution. And that shows you the importance of the tourism sector for the economy, for jobs, and I think for the nation. As you said, nation building and nation branding. But it requires a whole-of-government approach, because you need to have the airports, you need to have the training, you need to have the planes coming, you need to have the open skies policy, and you need to have the, you know, sustainable environment, sustainable social and cultural aspects. So I think this is really where we are. And a lot of us in different countries are in different stages of trying to, I think, basically as tourism ministers, emphasize the importance of our sector to our leaders. And I'm happy to hear that President Aquino is really prioritizing it. And in Myanmar, our president is beginning to. We have actually a law that says that there should be a, the president or the vice president should be the head of this coordination of national tourism, just like what you are doing in your master plan. And I think this is something that will be becoming important. And that should translate in the way we do, so nationally, regionally and globally. Nationally, that's what's happening. What about regionally in ASEAN? I think in ASEAN what's happening is that we, as ASEAN members, we're trying to promote ASEAN as a destination. So it's not just Indonesia or Myanmar or Philippines. How do we package two or three stops in one ASEAN? And, you know, companies like Low Cost Careers like Air Asia helps us a lot to be able to do that packaging. But that requires you to do what? You have to have a visa free within ASEAN. Second, we want to have common ASEAN visa so that anybody coming into Philippines can go to Indonesia without visa. So these are mobility of people. That's one aspect. Open skies, having the airlines and the connectivity be able to happen. And then the infrastructure itself. And finally, standards. That's another part of the ASEAN cooperation where we have introduced standards for hotels and including home stays, by the way. So it goes from the five-star to the home stays. So this is about the inclusiveness and the community building. And the people who are working in this sector, the professionals, because by 2015 with ASEAN Economic Community you can have free movement of professionals in the hotel and travel tourism hospitality sector. I think there's 32 categories of professions that can move. So you have to have standards and you have to have mutual recognition agreements and certification. And that hopefully will make us a more competitive location. Thank you. I notice that you twice recognize the importance of Tony. I don't know if he's given you one of his hats to wear after the meeting. That's the picture of the conference, by the way. Tony, you've got really a terrific opening today. Everybody wants open skies and more visitors. Yeah, it's music to my ears, to be honest. Firstly, if you don't recognize me, it's because I'm dressed up. Because there are three tourism ministers on my panel of which all of the countries I fly to. So yesterday I was wearing jeans and a T-shirt. But the beauty of owning an airline is that I could send a message and they sent me up trousers and a proper shirt. And I'm also being very well behaved. I'm not wearing my cap, ministers. So please support AirAsia. This is a first, by the way. It is a first. I suppose I just want to touch on one point which hasn't been covered yet in terms of developing sustainable tourism is the branding aspect and how Myanmar is going to brand itself. And I was thrilled at the dinner of watching the whole presentation from the logo of Myanmar to the video that was produced, which I also am learning a lot about the country. And that one video taught me a tremendous amount and drove me into saying I want to see more of this country. So we can have all the plans in the world, but we have to let people know where to go, what to do, et cetera. And a picture tells a million words. And so I think a very important part in developing tourism in Myanmar is how you're going to tell the world about Myanmar and tell your own country about Myanmar as well. Because everyone talks about tourism, they think about the inbound. But I always say you've got to be champions in your own country first. If you can develop a local tourism market of people from Bagan, going to Yangon, then you start the whole infrastructure process. It's the domestic market that creates it. And the domestic market sets the tone of what the tourism market is. So I think in the blueprint there must be a section to stimulate local tourism. Air Asia, we started in a small country in Malaysia and we built a reasonable brand on the back of my cap. But we've also done things which have been different. We sponsored Manchester United when we only had seven planes. That was a very painful decision for me because I hate that football club with a massive H. But you have to be a prostitute once in a while. And we went through huge pressures of building our brand. We wanted to sponsor the referees on the Premier League which is a huge audience. And we were up against Emirates that had like a gazillion dollars more than us. Which goes to this man as well in front of me. And so I went to the Premier League and presented and I said you have to support us, not Emirates. There are probably about two people in Dubai watching football while in Malaysia we've been watching it all their lives and that didn't make much difference. And then I said you have to support us because all the bookies are in Malaysia fixing your games. And that kind of woke them up. But finally in terms of pushing the brand I said I want to sponsor the red card. And they said what do you mean you want to sponsor the red card? I said I want to have Air Asia on the red card because whenever a player is sent off you see the picture there and you'd be great to see Air Asia. On the other side it says now you're suspended have a holiday with Air Asia. But the theme of what I'm saying is that I think Myanmar has a wonderful product. But it's good to have the product but you've got to let the world know about the product and in your own country. And finally there are lots of people who are letting the world know about their product as well. So to make yourself well heard is important. So I think in any sustainable blueprint the whole marketing of it needs to be there. I think Myanmar can benefit from I think tourism has grown dramatically in ASEAN recently and I'm thrilled of what's happening in the Philippines because I think that also is probably a little bit behind the other ASEAN countries but now catching up because there's so much to see. But I think the beauty of ASEAN is that within four hours there is such diversity and I think if you four hours of America with all due respect to Americans is more or less the same. And four hours in Europe though the differences is not as different as ASEAN. The whole depth of it is massive. And I think Myanmar can piggyback on the back of ten amazing countries and of course go around Asia only on Air Asia. And at that point I shall end my talk. Thank you Tony. There's always difference. Are you going to be showing the Myanmar video on Air Asia flights? As a low cost airline we have no in-flight video. But in September we're introducing Wi-Fi and you'll be able to stream content and we will definitely will. We took the do's and don'ts, a lady came and presented to me and it was fantastic. It was a cartoon book on the do's and don'ts and that I think is something we'll incorporate in our magazine straight away. But we'll extend it not just to Myanmar to all the parts of ASEAN. We don't need to in Philippines because it's always fun. Everything is doomed as the minister said. Can I just add two more points actually to remember I think it's very important. You're going to do it whether I say yes or no on you. I think it's very important for tourists payment mechanisms and I hope in the blueprint because obviously people now don't carry as much cash and credit cards and debit cards etc. So I think ease of tourism making it easy for tourists to transact and finally costs. I think I was unfortunately sitting next to super luxury people in my tourism panel who wanted to tax everybody. I think it's very important that the mass market and the future leaders the YGLs etc. all don't start off with millions of dollars. It's important to allow the young people to come here because they will be the future leaders as well and so it's important not to tax the industry too much. It's the easiest thing to tax. You can't afford tax, carbon taxes and the guy from super luxury hotel wants to tax everything. So I think it's... Have you got a complex? I know you did to be fair on you. But I think cost is important and to build a product that's affordable so the people of Myanmar can use it and the people of ASEAN can use it and then later on. Thank you very much. Sebastian, you've been sitting there quietly listening to this. What's your take on it as someone who's perhaps looking at tourism through a different set of spectacles? Yes, well first of all after Tony's introduction I realized I lost all my chance of being taken seriously. I'm wearing jeans. But I'll try. Let me try to tell you where I'm coming from. First of all I want to thank you for the organization for marginalized urban children and youth and in a very small nutshell we're doing two things. We're saving lives and we're building futures. So saving lives we go under the bridges and the prisons and the drugs then in the squads where the kids are and we provide life-saving services and then building futures it's all about helping little kids to go back to school and stay in school for as long as possible to rebuild families so the families can take care of themselves. Now this relates directly in tourism because I work in Laos, in Thailand, in Indonesia, in the Philippines and directly in Myanmar and directly and all these countries have seen a huge influx of tourists and quite rapidly. And for me it's been very useful because on one hand I see the benefit of it in terms of building futures it's absolutely great because I can do all these trainings for young people that will then be employed in the tourist industry. So we're running vocational training restaurants that are top of the travel advisory if you want to check and that's high quality so they get the best jobs possible banking a lot on the tourism. But the saving lives part is where I'm more concerned. Really if we need to look at the different types of tourists there are to me three main types. The first ones, the predators the ones that come in the country is just to take advantage sex tourists and especially the pedophiles. Everyone knows about this when we say the risk of tourism that's the first thing that comes to your head because the media has been extremely strong. It's very important we work on it many people work on it but fortunately it's only a small percentage of the tourist population coming. The biggest one are the very nice tourists that want to just enjoy the country and contribute when they see some problems. And that is an issue because many of the tourists that come in the country actually don't know what to do and they see poverty they see difficult situations and what do they do. So they react by instinct they give money to the kids which by the way keeps the kids on the streets because then I come later and say can you come to the school and say no I made five dollars thank you very much. So it destroys the work of the future. It also these people that take the kids in their hotel rooms because they pity them and give them showers putting the kid at risk and themselves at risk because they could be arrested for that. So there's a lot of very strange behaviors that we need to explain we need to change and then there's a third group that is now trendy it's the charity tourists the guys who are going and find it very interesting and very cool to go into an orphanage, take photos of the kids play for a while put this on their Facebook and feel extremely good but they have done tremendous damage they entered a private place where the kids should be safe they came with a foreign culture it's really damaging and extremely dangerous and all this has to be taken into account so how to do that? Well we run a project called ChildSafe and ChildSafe is targeting different levels we're targeting the tourists themselves in destination and arrival places to teach them about the good things to do what not to do and what to do instead so it's a positive approach trying to give alternatives to negative and we run big campaigns for example a big campaign called children and not tourist attractions to reduce this kind of trend of taking photos of the kids we work with the business the tourism business we work with the hotels we work with travel agencies we work with airlines I'm looking at Tony to bring out the message to train the professionals of the sector to know what's right and not right how to protect the vulnerable populations when they take the tourists with them and through that teach also the tourists of the right things to do and then we work with of course the wider communities because they need to be prepared to react when there's something and give them the tools to recognize what's right, what's wrong how to react when something is going bad so it has to be action oriented it's not just papers that say these are the principles but how do we do this and what are the tools so it's a network of organizations hotlines etc so when I see this rapid increase of tourism coming to Myanmar I'm very excited job opportunities coming we can train young people there's huge potential and then I panic because we're entering these tourist entering houses of people that are absolutely not ready, not trained and unprepared to have this influx and I think that's what you said it's very safe and that's a thing that has to be done together, government NGOs, the private sector everyone, the communities everyone needs to be part of this effort and you see that coming at the beginning of the process rather than sporadically during the process or even when it's too late is that your message? our message is we're in a very good position in Myanmar because we can start now and start to build that and build both the benefit but also preventing the damage in other countries you don't have a choice you have to go along and try to minimize what's already been done and catch up but it's feasible because if everyone gets on board I see tremendous changes I mean our campaign on children and not tourist attractions have raised incredible responses I thought I would be attacked by everyone, actually no the movement in Cambodia in Laos, that's been quite amazing so very very positive support Marie if I may come back to you for one second you mentioned briefly in passing the visa situation and we know the WEF has done and other organizations WTTC IATA, WTO have done terrific part have done terrific work in this field at the stage where you were able to present here between a number of ministries and you ministers here would you just like to say how important the visa issue is in this whole game I think after a long process of discussion and learning from countries experiences I think we've concluded that obviously having travel being facilitated people to people movement can have a lot of impact on the number of tourists coming into your country I think the estimates range anything from 10 to 20% increase if you could do a lot of effort to reduce or remove the restrictions on visas without sacrificing the security concerns of which why visas are imposed and in the case of the three four of us two days ago we signed a letter of intent towards smart tourism which we would like to increase the efficiency in the first place of visa issuance by using technology whether it's electronic visa, e-visa and getting third parties to help you with the payment of the visa if you did so that it could be in your airline ticket etc that's kind of the first stage and we will at least the four ministers from ASEAN we would like to support a continued effort towards first of all travel within ASEAN visa free travel for ASEAN nationals within ASEAN and Myanmar because they are going to be the chair of ASEAN next year I think has may I say it? has made a commitment that by the end of this year all ASEAN nationals can travel visa free to Myanmar so that that's then it's completed the ASEAN visa free travel is completed then our next target is the common visa where non ASEAN nationals can come in from any of the ASEAN countries and then travel within ASEAN visa free that's kind of the way we are moving forward and we probably start with few groups of countries not all of ASEAN immediately but a few groups of ASEAN countries within that to start doing the so called common visa Tony before I turn this to the floor and it is time to take it to the floor this initiative on getting rid of too many formalities but too many and burdensome formalities at the borders is this something that your colleagues in the aviation industry are firmly behind is there more need for transport ministers and tourism ministers and immigration ministers to sit down and get a common cause on this? the best thing I heard today was Minister from Indonesia Mary said was getting all ministries involved of course we want less formalities and if you look at Australian situation and we have been pushing various governments into this where they still require visas it can be done online so at least 90% can get their visas very easily and maybe people they are not so sure about have to go in for an interview etc so I think we are at a position where we can use technology to make it better of course we would like to get rid of visas for it in some countries in some situations but let's use technology as much as possible to keep it simple and make it easy and just on that point in terms of a smart system I hope tourism transport ministers also look at a common aviation policy flying from here to Myanmar we go through three different air traffic controllers who have three different standards and three different cost structures it would be great for us to have a common aviation policy a common air traffic control system a common aviation authority like in Europe where they have JA and the European air traffic control system so whatever ASEAN can do to make it easy not just in the visa form but in all other modes I think we would encourage tourism within ASEAN just based on my own experience the more one can get cross ministerial on this issue particularly now that you have such a strong position from tourism ministers which is so good for national development the other points however what worries me in this and you may minister Jimenez you may want to comment on this the airports themselves need to be made more efficient as the visa system it's difficult to make a visa system open but if you have an airport where the people are then packed in dealt with like sheep it creates a terrible impression for people who have been sitting on airplanes for long periods of time and I think that the ASEAN ministers might want to even look to make sure that that facilitation goes hand in hand absolutely I think especially in the case of the Philippines there is a very serious effort now to reform the airport management system and in fact to arrive at shall we say new standards and new paradigms even relative to existing standards what do I mean the new orientation is a stronger focus on passenger comfort this notion of giant glass and steel airports is a paradigm that in our view is about to shift because the focus must be on facilitation reducing the time that people have to spend being processed in an airport in other words reducing the time from shall we say tube to curbside and bringing that to the barest minimum and with the visa facilitation the solution apparently is really just plain and simple technology and the sharing of data that actually allows us for example as they do in other markets in the world to reduce if not totally eliminate departure protocols for immigration that is a result of data sharing as we pointed out we are looking at that and in fact there is already an ASEAN kind of initiative in that area because the ability to share data is the key to all of these things I'm going to open this up now to questions from the audience gentlemen in the second row do we have a microphone would you tell us who you are as well I'm Sim I'm the founder of the World Toilet Organization the other WTO absolutely there's also the World Tourism Organization so there are three of us I just want to add on to the comfort factor that if you have better toilets you will have more tourists and this is a very neglected area because a lot of toilets are actually very disgusting when the tourists go there they call back and they tell their friends don't go to that place especially when you are just newly developed and also that they are going to bring aged elders and children so I like to take this opportunity to say that on the second to fourth of October Indonesia is hosting the World Toilet Summit and the theme is about tourism toilets and we would like everybody to come and of course Tony is also supporting us on this thank you very much well this wasn't the question we were expecting so maybe there's another question please thank you good morning I was very delighted with the conversation I love the idea that the young should be part of the conversation so I'm just wondering how actively are you engaging universities as well as the next gen in terms of crossing the borders having cheaper air flights maybe Tony would like to do that as an entrepreneurship I love the concept of standards and I think what's missing is the education piece how are we involving the universities the polytechnics in this conversation how do you answer that as we started the journey we are very aware of the human resource now we set up the university level especially the bachelor degree for the students to get learning at the young bone and Mandalay University we also have some small training schools in Mandalay then also I allowed private organizations to set up institutions or small training or something like that so now we warmly welcome all of the international institutions to come over to check the situation and to get the business not only with the public but also the private sector we have already opened under the ASEAN agreement obviously there are what we call competency standards for different professional qualifications in the hospitality industry so that will help to standardize the curriculum and then we probably should work towards more and more competency standards and that's hopefully certainly we involve all the universities and institutes in teaching tourism but I think what needs to be we need to be more forward looking and think about the sustainability standards I think that's the one that's still not there and certainly in my country where we have a lot of tourism destinations which have very important issues of sustainability it goes from having dive operators who are well trained all the way to how do you manage a destination so it's sustainable I think that's where we would love to work with universities just on the first point obviously low cost carriers have been a big driver in getting people to move around and I think there's nothing like learning until you go to the country itself and I think the youth is driving ASEAN integration much quicker than any politician or corporate figure because they're beginning to understand each other much more if you look at an Air Asia plane the majority is young people who are flying to places and never thought about flying to places from our point we are facilitating teachers and young people to exchange we're creating an exchange so recently five teachers from Bali who came to dive schools in Malaysia to educate the process so having an exchange because the best way of sharing a product to be understood and to share experiences is for those experiences to go to the country so we support those means but I think certainly low cost carriers have made ASEAN a smaller place and I think the integration process is in a healthy place because of the young let me just if I may before going to Simon Cooper let me just make one general comment I've spent a long time in this sector as an organisation in the private side with the World Travel and Tourism Council and with the airlines, with the ATA I think this area because we've been so fragmented we've missed something very significant on the link with education most of the education has been vocational tourism as a discipline has actually only recently started to come into university curriculum in particular around the world it's mostly a subset of geography or economics and I think as the industry's matured over the last 20 years and now it is being recognised by the G20 and by other organisations ASEAN, the EU is beginning to show some slow signs of waking up this is the moment when your point is particularly valid but as I mentioned we have an initiative that I've been involved in that doesn't come out of the tourism side it comes out of the environment side with Morris Strong the father of sustainable development has a concept of a world environment university that one doesn't exist at the moment and we are looking including with Gerald's academy in Dubai we are looking at linking universities into that tourism side and I think in the next 2 or 3 years we've got about 20 in our network now and in the next 2 or 3 years you're going to see quite some focus on this from the institutional side of the sector Simon Cooper Simon Cooper, Merit International my question is for the minister our host when you talk about countries ramping up tourism exponentially which is what you are planning to do my little list of countries that have successfully done it have all managed to work around the bottlenecks they had bottlenecks and they created new destinations I went through Mexico, Cuba Europeans and Canadians can fly to 12 airports in Cuba, they never have to go through a van Bali, Phuket Da Nang Sri Lanka has built a new airport down the south common element is beaches and sand you can add Egypt to that list and Turkey there are 2 airports that I picked up with Siem Reap and Chiang Mai in terms of airports that are not beach related given that and the growth that you're looking for clearly Yangon is a bottleneck if we fast forward 5 years and your numbers are much larger where are the tourists coming into what are the new destinations with the new airports that Tony's airplanes are going to be sitting on the ramp and being very busy with a Queen's Park Ranger logo on the side thank you thank you Mr. Simon from Marriott you came to Myanmar long time ago now I'm very happy to see you again so you see just we did a nation branding campaign with support of image diplomacy and I believe that the peoples will be coming so for instance just like a Napieraw international airport it will be open soon for the international airlines say in September, October air issue will be coming to Napieraw Napieraw is Napieraw can be done for any historical attractions but we have the mice facilities here we have capacity of the sufficient capacity of the hotels here also this one can be also done for the new market segment we have some other airports like Manila international airport it was built since 2000 but unfortunately it was ideal for many years from Manila you can go to other areas this is like a hub for the country so from there you can also go to other areas like go to the north for the for the mountain climbing for the south in the south we have good airport but it is not enough for jumbo jet or something like that but it can be accessible to go there so these are the opportunities for the country to improve tourism thank you other questions please what is the secondary or ground transportation there were a lot of discussion about the importance of having new accommodation or airline access to the airport but how can the visitors reach to the destination without the well-organized ground transportation not on an escorted tour so the importance of secondary transportation on the ground is much more thought about should be thought about and do you have any plans to upgrade your secondary or ground transportation in Myanmar of course you have the Philippines and Malaysia but maybe there are more in the future thank you ground transportation is for the time being it is handling by tour operators and travel agent we don't have the special car rental services in Myanmar for the time being we have some car rental services but in the near future there will be big car company they will be coming like that but right now the local investor they are also interested in doing such kind of ground handling business not only in Yangon but also in Nepal and other destinations but it will be coming so it is very difficult to stimulate now they see the market so now they are about 1,100 visitors coming for this forum so it is handled by one of the tourism company by tourism enterprise so it is difficult to find now we are talking about the standards also not only the car in the past it is very difficult to get import licenses very expensive incredible in terms of prices so that's why now today it is already relaxed so there are many new cars in Yangon you see also the traffic is jamming but so there will be more opportunities coming when the market is growing thank you I'm going to take one question I'm then going to give one fast question sorry about that I'm then going to give each panelist one minute to 30 seconds to last comment thank you my name is Sugianto from Indonesia private sector I'm a company making an informal solution especially toward the plastic problem I'm delighted to be here seeing hearing the three ministry talking about tourism and Sebastian touching on the negative effect tourism on the people I'd like to bring forward how about the negative effect on the environment I understand like Indonesia we have the environmental act four years ago Singapore about 30 years ago I'm glad to learn that Myanmar a year ago had an environmental act as well and me myself going for tourism in and go to the beach the plastic issue 30 seconds for the question I'd just like to know whether this is the green tourism this is something on the agenda in each country for the three ministry as well as whether the Asian collectively any policy toward that thank you Minister would you like to quick answer on this one in the Philippines very much so green tourism is in fact or echo tourism is a very strong area of focus we believe that the 7107 islands of the Philippines are worth preserving each and every one and the land use plans for each of our islands are already nearing completion once upon a time there was no such thing by the way and this is all in pursuit of a stronger move to preserve the ecology in the Philippines being if you will the center of the center of biodiversity in our part of the world so we have an awesome responsibility in that respect being if you will custodians of some of the most most sought after endemic species for sea life and plant life so yes that is in place Minister thank you Minister you've already told us you had a responsible tourism policy before you actually put in your strategy I already explained to the audience about all the policy responsible tourism policy do's and don'ts also the very helpful information with and also the community involvement in tourism and the final draft of the master plan we already included to preserve our natural and cultural heritage that's why today we are discussing sustainable tourism development which means we have to care about our products thank you I think we are thinking through how to implement what's on paper not allowed and all that about sustainable tourism in the environmental sense and I think to be practical at the end of the day how do you have the right incentive where you can have economic development and sustainability I can give you examples of what we're trying to do for instance waste collecting plastic and recycling it you have to put a monetize it and then you can get things going even though you do have to have a lot of education to the people in the tourism area and I think dynamite fishing is a big problem for I'm sure also in the Philippines I think your Borokai initiative is a really good idea so how do you change the fishermen from wanting to catch fish using dynamite to wanting to protect it you have to give them alternative livelihoods etc so I think that's the way we want to approach it and hopefully we wish us luck because it is a lot of coordination with stakeholders, with NGOs as well as with local government and especially in the ocean it's really difficult to monitor we're talking about wide expanse of sea where if you don't have the patrol boats what are you going to do I can't take it, I have to give Sebastian if you have anyone last 30 second comment Tony I'll come to you at the end sorry I can't say that for me it's we need to keep in mind that we are invited in people's homes and we're suddenly barging rooms inside the kitchen we're opening the fridges and taking things when we're investors we just come in and we need to do this very carefully very mindfully we need to be respectful and extremely careful how we do this because we take things for granted and I think the conversation where only big business and government happen have the conversation is dangerous you have to have the local businesses you have to have the civil societies and the teaching institutions you need to have also the visitors involved everyone must be part of this conversation and cannot be just business and government making decisions because we are living and working and enjoying other people's homes thank you and I want one last comment if you will from you Tony I just build a brand keep it simple and I love the minister's comment actually that Myanmar is a big country so the areas that you can be brave on the other areas you can say well let's keep tourists away from that but let's not get too hooked up on sustainability in the whole country and avoid giving people a chance to grow economically ladies and gentlemen let me just give you half a dozen takeaway points from this I finish now one fly air Asia how was that okay one hole of government two inclusion of everyone at the start it's a population issue it's not just a sectoral issue you need a good strategy green has to be there at the same time as growth implementation is where it's all going to be at there's plenty of papers floating about now the question is how is it going to be implemented that's going to need a lot of money a lot of innovative financing open skies smart borders easy visas keep the costs down don't go crazy on taxation tax wisely get your branding right because brand is critically important education formal and bringing young people more and more into play we live in our towers and the forum shows how the benefits are of bringing the young people last point this isn't an issue of we come here we have a meeting and we say we can solve the problems some of these issues the environment the carbon is a 20 year game the key is to be moving in the right direction together I'd like to thank the panel thank the audience if you'd like to thank them in the traditional way