Sustainable Tourism Bhutan, Indonesia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka
This programme aims at the tourism sector in six Asian countries: Bhutan, Indonesia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka. The goal is to help companies in these countries attract more tourists from Europe.
In this programme we are working mainly with tour operators. This is because tour operators are in a good position to attract foreign tourists. If they do a lot of business, this usually means other entrepreneurs in their countries will also get more customers. For example, tour guides, interpreters, restaurants, diving schools et cetera. In this way tourism has a large spinoff effect on remote, poor areas. Boosting tourism, therefore, is a good way to fight poverty.
A lot of tourism is inherently linked to sustainability. In this programme we want to help the participating companies to become more sustainable. For example, by creating better conditions for workers, monitoring and evaluating their business and respecting the environment.
Project details
This programme began in 2014 and will end in 2017. First, we selected tour operators. Then we audited the companies to find out their strengths and weaknesses, to set up a good export coaching programme.
After that we began to help the individual companies to get more business. This means developing more specialised products, for example: bird-watching trips, outdoor cooking classes, or community-based tourism.
Another point of attention in this programme is destination branding and marketing. This means creating a strong brand to make a particular tourism area or offer better known. It also means doing better marketing and building better websites, to attract European customers. Direct online sales are growing in tourism and online marketing is thus a focus point.
Another focus in this programme is to identify niche tourism markets with a lot of potential in each country. For example, Nepal is strong in adventure tourism, Bhutan has exciting bird-watching trips, and Indonesia has many unique islands that are far less known than the famous tourist island of Bali.
Project participants and products
A total of 84 companies are taking part in this programme. They offer many different tourism products and experiences.
| Countries | Companies |
|---|---|
| Nepal | 20 |
| Bhutan | 15 |
| Indonesia | 18 |
| Myanmar | 15 |
| Mongolia | 7 |
| Sri Lanka | 9 |
Meet the participants
You can contact CBI to get in touch with these exporters. Another possibility is to meet these potential suppliers at the next big trade fairs, ITB Berlin and WTM London, which we will attend with some of them in Europe.
Partners
Our partners in this programme include:
- Nepal Tourism Board
- Bali Tourism Board
- Tourism Council of Bhutan
- Sri Lanka’s Association of Small and Medium Enterprises in Tourism (ASMET)
We also work with Travelife, a leading training, management and certification initiative for tourism companies committed to reaching sustainability. All of the companies in this programme are members of Travelife.
Get involved as an importer
Are you a European tourism operator interested in tourism in Asia? If you are, you can contact CBI to get more information, or to meet with potential inbound tour operators who have been trained to serve incoming tourists from Europe.