People often associated the Mekong River exclusively with Vietnam. Unbeknownst to many, the mighty Mekong stretched a long distance and drew out amply, forming a sub-region inside the vast Asian continent. The countries of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, and even China, were all needled together by the Mekong River.
2018 Mekong Tourism Forum: Sustainable Travel in Focus
In light of that geographical fact, the Mekong not only stitched those nations together through its many snaking tributaries, it also paved the way for the creation of a deputized tourism organization centering on areas where the mighty Mekong passed through.
Since 1996, leading players from the travel industry had been gathering annually for the Mekong Tourism Forum. Each year, a standout number of issues were discussed along with new ideas. That year, a myriad of fresh, innovative concepts were deliberated—with every topic generating buzz and heightened awareness, aimed at making the Mekong sub-region meet the demands of growing tourism as Earth-friendly and community-centered as possible.
Transforming Travel – Transforming Lives
That year’s theme centered on making the travel industry become the vehicle to transform lives. Other than the usual economic and cultural development gained from the tourism industry, participants were encouraged to deeply advocate for the inclusion of more local communities.
To send that message clearly, a number of conference sessions were held at various local communities where delegates participated in various discussions tackling the several tourism key points such as eco-tourism, heritage tourism, religious tourism, festival tourism, adventure tourism, wellness tourism, and food tourism.
Jens Thraenhart, Executive Director of the Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office, stated, "We believe that tourism can be an important catalyst in changing people’s lives for the better through mutual understanding. Organizing workshops in ethnic villages surrounding the city of Nakhon Phanom was an idea focused on bringing delegates to areas where tradition still shapes people’s daily life."
Simultaneously held in eight ethnic community villages around Nakhon Phanom and guided by regional experts, the delegates engaged with the villagers. By doing so, we learned how tourism could make an impact in their communities. [1]
The Call for More Sustainable Tourism
Promoting tourism also came with a price: over-tourism. That bane of the tourism industry could cause significant damage to a once stunning destination. Case in point: the beaches of Thailand, Boracay Island in the Philippines, and Bali in Indonesia, just to name a few.
That was where the Mekong Region came in as an ideal place to combat over-tourism. Thraenhart added, “Thailand is very active supporting secondary destinations to combat over-tourism at popular resorts. Over-tourism is a global issue, and our trends report will feature input from fifty experts to show the way forward to achieve sustainable growth.”
Numerous speakers called for solid action to promote sustainable tourism to become an integral part of tourism promotion. One such presenter was Jeremy Smith—the co-founder and editor of Travindy.com, a leading sustainable tourism website. He discussed his book, “Transforming Travel”, which echoed the call for us to adopt the principles of the ‘circular economy’.
A circular economy was designed by the philosophies of regenerating valuable resources—especially of planet Earth. That meant minimizing, slowing down, or, in best-case scenarios, closing down energy and natural resources wastage. That was achieved through recycling, upcycling, durable design, constant maintenance, repair, reuse, refurbishing, and remanufacturing.
If applied in the tourism industry, the chances of conserving and preserving a tranquil island, an ancient city, and a snow-capped mountain became higher.
Start-Ups Took the Spotlight
That year’s Mekong Tourism Forum also provided an avenue for a number of promising start-ups to present their innovative ideas and attached advocacies, all pertaining to sustainability, digital nomadism, and community-based tourism programs.
Notable start-ups such as BambooLao, Ecohost, GoExplore, and Adventoro [2] made a huge impression with their varying advocacies centering on environmental causes—such as eliminating single-use plastics—to giving travelers and digital nomads more choices in planning their journeys across the Southeast Asia region.
The Influencing Role of Influencers in Tourism
It was no coincidence that that year’s Mekong Tourism Forum saw the most number of invited travel bloggers as compared to only a couple of individuals invited three years prior. That stemmed from the increasing influence of online influencers in championing the tourism industry.
By writing about travels, more and more people were getting inspired to pack their backpacks and explore a world outside their comfort zone. Matt Gibson, the President of the Professional Travel Bloggers Association, tackled that burgeoning movement of so-called online influencers.
Before Gibson presented his slides, he called out more than a dozen travel bloggers (including this writer) to join him on stage to introduce them to the many movers and shakers of the travel industry.
Because of that, I met several persons from the travel industry and made contacts for future collaborations. With more places to visit, particularly in the Greater Mekong region in Southeast Asia, and travel narratives to write about, I was glad to have been invited to attend the 2018 Mekong Tourism Forum.
Apart from learning heaps of knowledge about tourism in that part of the world, I also met wonderful and dedicated people who were passionate about introducing the wonderful culture and magnificent locations in the Mekong Region to the rest of the world.
Mekong Tourism Forum Highlights
Writer’s Note:
[1] I participated in the Heritage Tourism discussion, and a narrative of what transpired there was mapped for another blog post.
[2] I planned to write detailed articles about those start-ups in separate blog posts.
