ASEAN: Feel the warmth and see the bigger picture.
Over the past four decades not only has the Association of South East Asian Nations managed to contain historical animosities among its members, its succeeded in bringing together significant political unity in the region.
Hand in hand with that unity has come a new sense of Asian identity, a sense that, with all the parts pulling together, change and prosperity are a very real prospect.
ASEANs latest objective, Feel the Warmth has used that sense of unity for its new initiative - seeking to promote its 10 member states as a unified tourist destination.
It aims to do this through a one stop portal for travel, www.SoutheastAsia.org, and seeks to provide everything from, flights, accommodation, trip itineraries and traveller feedback.
The campaign wants to attract three types of travellers those with special interests, the adventure seekers amongst us, and the young independents.
Quite a project but with local media expertise from Quais consulting, travel search technology from We go, content from Lonely Planet and input from dozens of the regions most prolific travel bloggers, this is innovative new marketing at the very least.
This project is a very real attempt to engage with Travel consumers through social media, the bloggersphere and the broader Internet, but there are questions that need answering. Firstly can the campaign really achieve what it says it will? And is this really what the independent traveller wants?
These questions seem to be missing the point. While the campaign aims to promote multi-destination travel within ASEAN countries, it also has another goal - to fight poverty in the poorer areas of Asia.
And thats the real benefit of this campaign. A centralized portal for travel has to be a positive move, especially for the poorer communities like Cambodia and Laos who will thrive on the economy that tourism creates.
Building the bigger picture of South East Asia, as a multi-stop tourist destination, will help make the vision more complete and the possibility of feeling the warmth of this campaign a whole lot easier.
