South-East Asia will boost its tourism industry by promoting its cultural heritage through technology.
This was the boarder agenda discussed at the tourism conference titled “Connecting Heritages for ASEAN Tourism Development in Digital Age”, held on 16th January, 2019. Participants at the conference stressed on the importance of adopting modern digital technology for promoting cultural heritage and tourism.
According to the senior project officer at UNESCO World Heritage Nature, Sustainable Tourism and Outreach Unit, Peter DeBrine, technology is important for transforming the perception of natural and cultural sites. It will help in promoting tourism by improving experience of people who visit these sites.
Additionally, he said that the World Heritage sites all over South-East Asia count up to 38, with each member country having at least one of them. This creates a good chance for nations to encourage the growth of visits from one country to another. This will also help promote the culture across countries.
He also emphasised that incorporating technology is the best option to attract visitors and create a good experience for them.
According to DeBrine, storytelling is a good way to develop the tourism industry and mobile phones in this digital age will help us do that. Promoting culture to develop a well-grounded tourism industry has been made easy with modern digital tools.
He gave the example of World Heritage Journeys Europe, a collaborative initiative from UNESCO and National Geographic. Financed by the European Union, the project aims to promote European Culture online.
The internet breathes life into the 34 World Heritage sites present in Europe by promoting them through attractive pictures, inspiring stories, lively videos and engaging maps. Digital technology is present in every household, allowing Europe to reach the wider global audience and develop sustainable tourism.
According to DeBrine, the aim is to incorporate digital technology into tourism in order to bring a change in the way travelling works. It will help people gain a deeper insight about the culture and heritage of different countries and, their involvement with the beautiful culture will make them stay longer.
Con Apostolopoulos, the senior vice-president National Geographic Partners Asia Pacific and the Middle East, emphasised on the fact that the same method of promoting tourism could be introduced into South-East Asia. This could be done by promoting culinary, art, ancient knowlege, traditions and customs through journeys that mainly focus on these elements. This will help in creating engaging stories that will boost trips across countries in South-East Asia.
On the other hand, he declared that the biggest challenge of this project would be to make the member states work together. He believes that this is a great opportunity for the member countries of South-East Asia to bring a huge change in their tourism industry. Furthermore, he encouraged the member countries by emphasising on the fact that sharing their resources wouldn’t make them lose their identity.
