Ecotourism conference held in Bali

A conference on ecotourism is being held in Bali by the Forum for East Asia and Latin America Cooperation (FEALAC) from July 17 to 18.
"The countries in the two regions (East Asia and Latin America) have the world's best ecotourism destinations and they have identified efforts to strengthen cooperation in ecotourism among FEALAC member countries," said the director for inter-regional cooperation at the Foreign Ministry, Dian Wirengiurit, on Thursday, as quoted by Antara news agency.
The conference is being attended by around 200 representatives of 24 FEALAC member countries.
Wirengiurit said the conference follows a decision made by the FEALAC Working Group in a meeting in Korea in October 2007.
The decision acknowledged the importance of initiating programs supporting FEALAC efforts in enhancing cooperation between East Asian and Latin American countries, particularly in the economic and social fields.
Speakers at the two-day conference will include experts and officials from Brazil, Argentine, Korean, Japan, New Zealand, the Philippines and Indonesia.
The theme of the conference is "Towards Sustainable Ecotourism Development in East Asia and Latin America".
A survey of the tourism market shows that the market for ecotourism in Latin America and Europe was increasing by about 30 percent a year, while in Asia and Pacific the rate of increase is more than 20 percent a year.
The ecotourism market has also proven to easily adapt to changes in trends in tourism, and to have strong survival and fast recovery capability from different threats and challenges such as bombing incidents, war and even the SARS epidemic.
All FEALAC member countries possess natural beauty and unique culture to be offered as ecotourism potentials, and the development of nature and culture tourism products has beenincreasing in recent years in the two regions.
Among objectives of the conference were to raise awareness among all tourism stakeholders about the importance of responsible and sustainable ecotourism development, to exchangeexperience and best practices in developing ecotourism, and to establish FEALAC Ecotourism Network.
Established in 2001, FEALAC has 33 member countries including Australia, China, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, Panama, Thailand and Peru.

Source: Antara , Thursday, 07/17/2008