Promoting tourism in SAARC countries

The centuries old civilization, affluent and exclusive cultural diversity, exquisite gastronomy invitation, exceptionally diverse and vast array of geography, wonderful archaeological monuments, historic sites of religious worth and above all very friendly people of South Asia, make the region a very attractive place for intra-regional as well as worldwide tourism. Easily the region can woo all kinds of tourists from momcation to baby boomers at a single row because of the regional connected boundaries. The SAARC Leaders constantly signify the importance of tourism and give emphasis to the need of taking measures for advancing tourism in the region.The Leaders, during the Second Summit, underscored that concrete steps should be taken to facilitate tourism in the region. Tourism has been an important dimension of most of the subsequent Summits. At the Twelfth Summit held in Islamabad in January 2004, the Leaders were of the view that development of tourism within South Asia could bring economic, social and cultural dividends.There is a need for increasing cooperation to jointly promote tourism with South Asia as well as to promote South Asia as a tourism destination by improved air links and uninterrupted highways. To achieve this and to commemorate the twentieth year of the establishment of SAARC, the year 2005 has been designated by the Leaders as "South Asia Tourism Year". Member States are required to individually and jointly organize special events to celebrate it.Working Group on Tourism The Working Group on Tourism was established by the Council of Ministers during its Twenty-fourth Session held in Islamabad in January 2004. This was done after a comprehensive review of the SAARC Integrated Program of Action by the Standing Committee at its Fourth Special Session held in Kathmandu in August 2003.After that, the collective initiative for promoting South Asian Tourism has been almost unseen and unspoken for. The sense of its importance has not been exhibited in the recent 15th SAARC Summit as well. The subject of tourism has been shadowed by the issues of food crisis, climate change and terrorism. But ironically tourism may play an effective role to combat those above manmade threats towards peace and prosperity. The Working Group in 2004 made a number of recommendations for promotion of tourism in the SAARC region e.g.Printing of a SAARC Travel Guide,Production of a documentary movie on tourism in SAARC,Promotion of sustainable development of Eco-Tourism, Cultural Tourism and Nature Tourism,Collaboration in HRD in tourism sector by having programs for exchange of teachers, students, teaching modules and materials, Promoting Cooperation in the field of tourism with other relevant regional and international tourism organizations.In reality these recommendations are yet to be regular and are having less priority among more stressed issues of the region. In 2006 SAARC Tourism Ministerial meeting was held in Cox's Bazar. The gist of the meeting was almost remaining rhetoric in the promotion of tourism. Another sincere and serious SAARC tourism meeting should be called for pretty soon. The following mostly expected issues can be discussed in the meeting or underscored for the promotion of SAARC Tourism:Regularization of recommendations of the 2004's working groupsSAARC PassportSAARC Tour Operators and Travel AgenciesSAARC Tourism Board SAARC Chain HotelsInstitute of SAARC Hotel and Tourism ManagementSAARC AirlinesSAARC currency SAARC Transportation etc.The promotion of tourism in the region is the intense demand of the hours. Tourism could be the only recipe for uplifting peace, prosperity, fraternity, poverty reduction, for which SAARC had been originated, in the region.