Tan Sri Datuk Chong Kah Kiat, Deputy Chief Minister and Minister of Tourism, Culture and Environment of Sabah, Malaysia;
Excellency Ishaq Khan Khakwani, Minister of Information Technology and Telecommunication of Pakistan; Excellency Kim Hak-Su, Executive Secretary of UN-ESCAP;
Datuk Victor Wee, Secretary-General of the Ministry of Tourism of Malaysia;
Distinguished Delegates;
Ladies and Gentlemen:

First of all, allow me to congratulate the Malaysian people and government on their Golden Jubilee celebrations. I would like also to extend a warm welcome to all the participants in UNCTAD´s first subregional conference on e-Tourism. I am delighted to be here in "the land below the wind", "the land of mountain high and ocean deep". Sabah, I am sure, has the potential to be a major tourist destination of the Asia-Pacific region and of the whole world. UNCTAD is most pleased to be organizing this event in close cooperation with the Malaysian Government, the Sabah Tourism Board and other partners, including the Yayasan Sabah Group and the German Agency for Technical Cooperation.

All of you here today are well acquainted with what tourism means for developing countries, and particularly for this region. Tourism creates jobs and develops local entrepreneurship, contributes to the development of sorely needed infrastructure, diversifies the economy and increases value added. Developing countries can have a comparative advantage in this sector, offering today´s increasingly demanding and sophisticated traveller a wide variety of attractions. The demand for new tourism experiences - and for tourism in general - is growing by leaps and bounds. Moreover, tourism offers significant economic benefits for developing countries, particularly LDCs, many of which depend on the sector as their main source of foreign exchange earnings.

The tourism trends are all in favour of the developing world, which took in 34.5% of international tourist arrivals in 2004. Travel and tourism is now the single largest source of business-to-business revenue.

One driver behind this growth is the ongoing technological revolution, including rapid improvements in broadband and wireless connectivity and new online marketing tools, such as travel blogs, interactive maps, virtual tours, video telephony and webcams.

As the technology advances, so do the opportunities. e-Tourism enables those developing countries that are in a position to exploit it to bypass some of the stumbling blocks associated with more traditional tourism marketing and distribution channels, and to tackle the market dominance of developed-country tourism suppliers.

But the challenges are enormous. The costs of creating and maintaining cutting-edge destination websites can be intimidating. Many developing countries lack not only the telecommunications infrastructure, but also a sufficiently skilled workforce, to turn an information-only website into a productive marketing tool. Setting up an adequate destination management system calls for greater coordination and partnership between public and private sectors. It requires a well-conceived platform of financial, regulatory and administrative skills. Nor is it easy to keep up with technological changes, rapidly evolving mindsets and ever-greater market consolidation of worldwide tourism suppliers.

These challenges, however, can be overcome. Just look at what this region has accomplished in a few decades. The region of East Asia and the Pacific is the fastest-growing destination for international tourist arrivals, and this trend is likely to continue for the foreseeable future. China is set to be the world´s number-one destination by the year 2020.

e-Tourism accounts for a good part of this success. In 2004, the Tourism Authority of Thailand reported 150,000 hits a month on its booking website and over 1,000 confirmed bookings each month. By 2005, Cambodia´s website - launched only four years earlier - had had more than 230,000 visits, and one Cambodian hotel reportedly generated 70% of its revenues online. Viet Nam´s website attracted some 7.5 million users in 2005. Countries that are part of the ASEAN tourism website have done especially well, building strong regional branding.

One need only look at the Government of Malaysia´s tourist website to appreciate the value and relevance of e-Tourism for a modern economy. It is in many ways a model of its kind, a superb display of marketing, graphics and design, directing visitors immediately to separate portals for consumer and business travel. Relevant information is available at one´s fingertips. This is the marvel of e-Tourism, a dramatic demonstration of the burgeoning partnership between technology and the travel industry.

Still, there is an important challenge in building capacity at the regional and local level in order for local communities and SMEs to be competitive in the globalized economy.

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

Relevant international organizations like UNCTAD are ready to assist developing countries in strengthening their institutional capacity to increase local input to the tourism economy. This implies efforts to develop the relevant human resources and encourage tourism-specific entrepreneurship, through sensitization and financial and technical support, especially for small enterprise development. For communities with small enterprises, access to the market can be difficult or impossible. e-Tourism offers a viable means of access. It can represent a crucial step on the path to empowerment, growth and distribution of wealth.

Since 2004, UNCTAD has been engaged in an "e-Tourism Initiative" designed to boost travel and tourism in developing countries. The Initiative involves conducting country case studies that analyse the applicability of e-Tourism, holding training workshops on different aspects of e-Tourism, building consensus among stakeholders, and designing tools, such as a web platform for the management and promotion of local tourism resources.

The UNCTAD e-Tourism Initiative is based on a strong public-private partnership, as well as on building vertical and horizontal links between suppliers within a country. This partnership facilitates, for example, the pooling of resources and complementary skills for a collective promotion campaign.

The Initiative seeks to put power into the hands of small and medium enterprises and help destinations become self-sufficient in their search for business. It is designed to increase yield for developing countries and to curb the outflow of foreign exchange. It is meant to maximize linkages and minimize leakages. In short, it is designed to rebalance the international tourism system.

While tourism can enable countries to alleviate poverty and diversify their economies, e-Tourism can go one step further, encouraging destinations to take ownership of their brands and products in order to plough more revenues into the local economy. e-Tourism is more than just flashy websites; it allows local suppliers to structure their products in such a way as to make them visible, accessible and competitive in the global marketplace. e-Tourism makes it possible for niche products to reach niche markets. The potential - and benefit - for both backward and forward linkages is therefore enormous.

Through e-Tourism, countries can also harness other assets with tourism potential, such as art, crafts, culture and traditions, helping to shift the focus from mass tourism to higher-value tourism. Countries will also reap long-term benefits in ensuring a sustainable balance between economic benefits and sociocultural and environmental costs.

Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen:

This is why UNCTAD is organizing this conference. We firmly believe in the potential of integrating tourism and ICT. This fruitful combination can help reduce poverty, promote growth and assist developing countries in moving up the value chain and assuming their rightful place in the global arena. We also believe that a gathering like this will provide an opportunity for sharing experiences and for obtaining hands-on training in all aspects of the e-Tourism market. This is part of our e-Tourism Initiative, whose objective is to help the developing world capitalize on the considerable opportunities represented by this booming sector.

I hope that as a result of this conference and follow-up projects, Sabah and the Asia-Pacific region as a whole will lead the way in making e-Tourism work for growth, sustainable development and social inclusion.

Thank you very much.