Laos aims for billion dollar tourism industry by 2020

Around 50 participants attended the 3rd Quarterly Symposium on Tourism Sector Human Resources Development in Laos, which was organised by the Lao National Institute of Tourism and Hospitality (LANITH) in collaboration with the Lao National Tourism Administration through the support of the Luxembourg Development Cooperation Project.

Chief Technical Advisor of LANITH Mr Peter Semone said “Attendees will plan future strategies to turn Lao tourism into a billion dollar industry. They will also learn about future changes to tourism in the country and what it will take to achieve them.”He said that in 2010, there were 2.5 million visitors to Laos and the Lao tourism sector received US$400 million in revenue, second only behind the mining sector.

Eighty percent of visitors were from within the region. However, most stayed only a short time in Laos, meaning they accounted for only 45 percent of revenue in the tourism sector, with the rest coming from tourists from other regions, Mr Semone said.

“So, today we will discuss how to manage tourism services and increase tourist stays per diem to achieve one billion dollars in revenue by 2020.”“It is not only up to us, the tourism sector, to achieve the goal, but all communities. Laos also needs to improve its quality of services through education and training programmes,” he added.

LANITH also asked Cornell University Hotel School’s former Associate Dean and Professor of Strategic Management, Human Resources and Management Dr Thomas P. Cullen to pick up his crystal ball and make some predictions about how tourism will look in Laos in the year 2020, he said.Technical Education Advisor of LANITH Ms Maeve O’Brien said the institute plans to open a school for hospitality, tourism and education at Pakpasak Technical College by 2014.

“Our institute currently offers short training programmes on tourism skills in Laos and we will have 18 well-equipped trainers by the end of the year,” she said, adding the short-term programmes take two to 10 days to complete.

Source = laovoices