Asean launches website campaign

The 10 Asean countries launched a new tourism campaign, today, built around the slogan, Southeast Asia: feel the warmth.

The interactive website, SoutheastAsia.org is live but with just sample content introductions  and graphics. The full content and booking functions should go live at ITB Berlin in early March.

Tourism ministers representing the 10 Asean member countries signed off on the launch earlier today in Brunei, during the annual Asean Tourism Forum.  The 10 participating countries are Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Announcing the campaign Brunei?s minister of Industry and Primary Resources, Pehin Dato Yahya said the campaign was based on the following:

?First, the fact that ?Southeast Asia? has greater recognition in international source markets than ?Asean?. Second, the trust that online consumers now put in meta-search tools and user-generated content. Third, the importance of authenticity and ?warmth? in travellers? decision making processes. And fourth, the opportunities that Southeast Asia offers to visitors who are interested in exploring niche themes such as culture, adventure, shopping, ecotourism, island holidays, train travel, river and sea cruises.?

Chairman of the Asean Tourism Association (Aseanta), Felix J Cruz, said that the campaign had the supporting objectives of promoting multi-destination travel within Asean countries and help ?small and medium-sized tourism enterprises to showcase their tourism services to a wider audience?.

The website southeastasia.org is a project of  the Asean Competitiveness Enhancement (ACE) office , which is entirely funded USAID?s Regional Development Mission in Asia.

ACE project director, RJ Gurley, said: ?We are particularly excited about the boost in demand our theme-based approach to content will bring to niche-focused small and medium-sized tourism enterprises throughout Asean.?

In January 2009, ACE and Aseanta signed an agreement to work together on a new branding and marketing campaign that would encourage travellers to visit multiple Southeast Asian destinations, stay longer, and spend more money in the region.

The website will be hosted and managed by the Singapore-based ?travel comparison? search engine Wego.Com  that was formed in 2008.

Shortly after signing the  initial agreement with Aseanta, at ATF 2009, in Hanoi, Vietnam, ACE issued documents inviting internet related companies to bid for the project. Wego.com was identified at a very early stage as the host and mega-search provider. It is not clear how that fitted into the overall  bid process and questions to ACE are still pending a reply.

ACE has since entered into a content agreement with Lonely Planet, while Wego will provide an integrated map, trip planner and meta-search engine. Another Singapore firm, Qais, founded in 2003 in Singapore by Keith Timimi, who was also a founding investor in Wego, has been awarded the ACE contract to build traveller awareness of SoutheastAsia.org through a sustained e-marketing campaign,  also launched today, 25 January.

As part of the roll-out, the Asean Tourism Association, with support from Asean NTOs, has agreed to establish an Asean Tourism Marketing Centre, initially within the ACE project in Bangkok. The centre?s ACE-funded staff will coordinate with Wego and Qais to build awareness of SoutheastAsia.org and handle consumer queries.

All the tourism related projects under Ace are managed through Nathan Associates, which technically owns the website www.southeastasia.com.

Although it is identified as the official Aseanta website, the association will receive just a small share of an override commission that Wego earns from hotel and travel websites.  All bookings and payments will take place on the website of the travel supplier, which in turn pays a commission to Wego through a separate commercial agreement.

Asean ministers appear to have stopped short of fully endorsing the website. On the home page the official tagline says ?Asean is proud to support southeastasia.org.?

ACE has financed the development of www.southeast Asia.org: Feel the warmth, SoutheastAsia.org, the e-marketing campaign and the staffing of the Asean Tourism Marketing Centre.

Mr Gurley, said that ACE?s objective was to ?create a fully functioning and integrated global development alliance based on public and private sector partnership that would serve Southeast Asian tourism?.

ACE is funded by USAID?s Regional Development Mission in Asia (RDMA), which is based in Bangkok. ACE?s objective is to enhance the integration and competitiveness imperatives of two of Asean?s priority sectors: travel and tourism and textiles & apparel.

The ACE Project is part of the broader Asean-US Enhanced Partnership which was launched in 2006, under which the United States pledged its support to ASEAN in pursuing its objective of becoming an Asean Community by 2015.

The ACE Project is managed by Nathan Associates Inc, although ACE projects, ultimately are subject to stringent rules with reference to bidding, spending authorisation and transparency in business contracting under rules that apply to all USAID  projects, that are ulitmately funded by US taxpayers.

Sourced = The TTR Weekly