Singapore, Oct 12: Southeast Asia's tourism sector is set to surge by seven to eight percent over the next 12 months with the recent terrorism attacks to have only a short-term impact, an industry chief said here today. Thomas Cook travel agency Chairman Stefan Pichler said events such as the bombings that killed 202 people on the Indonesian holiday island of Bali exactly one year ago would not deter tourists for long. "We have unfortunately over the past years had terrorist attacks in other parts of the world, (such as) Egypt and Tunisia," Pichler told a press conference at the beginning of the 12th annual summit of the World Economic Forum (WEF) here. "The experience of those events shows that people tend to forget (the terrorist attacks) very fast. So there's no lasting impact on the demand from what has happened over the last two years." Pichler said travel and tourism in the region had already started to pick up after the Bali attack and the severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic that devasted the region in the first half of the year, and would continue to do so.
"The industry is bouncing back strongly and will reach growth of seven to eight percent over the next year," Pichler, who is one of the four co-chairs of the WEF east Asia summit, said.
He said the travel and tourism industry in southeast Asia was expected to generate USD 120 billion of economic activity in 2003.
He said this created 6.6 million jobs directly linked to the tourism industry, and another 18 million in indirect jobs.
Bureau Report