ASEAN TOURISM MINISTERS FORUM KICKS OFF TOMORROW IN HANOI

BY SABARINA BAHAROM

HANOI, Jan 8 (Bernama) -- The Asean Tourism Forum (ATF) 2009, the most
important and the largest-scale activity in the Asean tourism cooperation
framework, will kick off Thursday here.

The eight-day forum managed to draw about 1,500 delegates including tourism
ministers, leaders of national tourism offices, travel agents, tour operators
and press corporations in the region and worldwide.

Tourism Minister Azalina Othman Said will represent Malaysia at the meeting.

Accompanying the minister are Deputy Secretary-General for Tourism, Ministry
of Tourism Abdul Ghafar A. Thambi and acting Director-General of Tourism
Malaysia, Amirrudin Abu.

The theme this year is "Asean Tourism:Striving for a New Height". The
discussions are expected to revolve around issues and the desire to promote
Asean as a single destination, as well as strengthen partnerships and collective
commonalities of countries and bolster intra-Asean travel.

ATF was first held in Malaysia in 1981 and the Asean countries have annually
been taking turns to organise the event since then.
-- BERNAMA