In an effort to support the creation of “smart tourism cities and destinations” and strengthen the five Mekong countries’ capacities to be more competitive in global tourism market, Mekong Institute (MI)’s Trade and Investment Facilitation hosted a dissemination meeting to introduce a curriculum package focusing on tools and techniques for sustainable and smart tourism development on November 29, 2023.
A total of 27 project’s stakeholders in the Mekong region (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam) attended the online meeting, comprising government’s tourism promotion agencies, tour and travel organizations/operators, tourism enterprises, universities/hospitality education, and training centres.
The training curriculum package was designed and developed in collaboration with School of Culture & Tourism, Jeonju University of Republic of Korea (RoK). The package introduces a number of important areas of cutting-edge knowledge about sustainable tourism and digital transformation and gives introduction to key aspects on monitoring sustainability and gaining resilience.
The whole package consists of six interrelated modules, covering 21 sub-topics with a daily session plan for conducting a 5-day training program namely:
Module i. Understanding the Tourism Value Chain and the Tourism Ecosystem through System Thinking
Module ii. Introduction of Sustainable Tourism and the Need for a Regenerative approach
Module iii. Sustainable Tourism Governance and Strategic Planning
Module iv. Frameworks for Monitoring Sustainable Tourism, module v. Smart Tourism & Sustainability
Module vi. developing Adaptive Capacities for Resilient Tourism Ecosystems.
It is expected that the training module contents will be transferred and utilized by the prospective stakeholders in the Mekong region for incorporation and integration into their capacity-building activities of organization, association, and training center respectively.
This activity is part of a three-year project on “Sustainable and Smart Tourism Development in the Mekong Region”, funded by the RoK through the Mekong – Republic of Korea Cooperation Fund (MKCF). The ultimate goal is to consolidate human resource in managing the growing inbound tourism market through the adoption of sustainable and smart tourism practices in the Mekong countries.
