Proceedings of the 12th Meeting of

The COMCEC Tourism Working Group

Policy Options for Risk and Crisis Management in Tourism Sector:

Recovery from Crisis in the OIC Member Countries

The session was moderated by Mr. Ramin ATEEQZADA, Tourism Marketing Director from

Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism of Afghanistan. At the outset, Mr. ATEEQZADA

stated that the Room Document, prepared by the COMCEC Coordination Office in light of the

findings of the research report prepared for the Meeting and the answers of the Member

Countries to the policy questions which have already been sent by the CCO, would serve as the

basis for the discussions in the moderation session.

At the beginning of the session, Mr. Selçuk KOÇ, made a brief presentation on the responses of

the Member Countries to the policy questions on sustainable destination management

strategies. After presenting the questions and responses of the Member Countries, Mr. KOÇ

introduced the Room Document including draft policy advices.

Afterwards, Mr. ATEEQZADA gave the floor to all delegations asking their opinions and

comments for each policy advice. The participants provided their comments, which have been

reflected to the attached room document to be submitted to the 35th Session of the COMCEC.

The policy recommendations highlighted by the participants are as follows:

Improving community participation fair representation by offering human resources

training, capacity building and certification programs, enhancing local value chain,

integrating local production into procurement and minimize leakages, encouraging

local entrepreneurship in tourism, conducting media campaigns as well as raising

tourist awareness about tourism sustainability.

Identifying KPIs for sustainable tourism development based on international

standards and climate change agreement to monitor each country’s performance

against a set of pre-determined indicators and to encourage remedial actions when

targets are not met.

Identifying current and potential tangible and intangible tourism resources by taking

into consideration destinations carrying capacity, and their long term protection and

survival while avoiding over tourism.

The required mechanisms (e.g. voluntary contribution, tourist tax, environmental fees)

might be introduced to fund the sustainability activities that aim to protect, preserve

the local quality of life and minimize the costs associated with tourism.

Ensuring effective destination planning and marketing in such a way that the supply

and demand meet at the optimum level and diversified.