New efforts to boost eco-tourism
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The Asian Ecotourism Network (AEN) has opened its office in Bangkok to promote eco-tourism in Thailand.
AEN is the network of leading ecotourism experts and stakeholders both from public and private sectors, such as governmental agencies, academics, entrepreneurs, and NGOs. The AEN member economies at present comprise Japan, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, China, South Korea, Mongolia, India, Laos, Pakistan, Bhutan, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan and the Philippines.
Thailand's Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration (Public Organisation) or DASTA is a co-founder of AEN.
"DASTA believes that AEN will bring knowledge and experiences in the field of ecotourism development from other parts of Asia into the designated areas and vice versa, it will be a channel for DASTA to present its own success toward international level.” said Nalikatibhag Sangsnit, director-general of the Thai agency.
UNWTO's “Tourism in the Green Economy: Background Report 2012” showed that ecotourism, nature, heritage, cultural and “soft adventure” tourism will grow rapidly over the next two decades and global spending on ecotourism is expected to increase at a higher rate than the tourism industry as a whole. Such tourism could grow to 25 per cent of the global travel market within six years and account for US$470 billion per year in revenues.
