Sustainable Destination Management
Strategies in the OIC Member Countries
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where a regional tourism organization manages all aspects of the corridor or a mixture of both
with a high focus on individual regional projects.
An example of a hands-off approach would be the Holy Family Corridor, where Egypt and
Jordan conduct very little joint management, and private stakeholders have taken over the
promotion and management of the corridor to the public.
An example of a more controlled approach is the Danube Competence Center, which does direct
product development and marketing of the region centrally in collaboration with the public
and private sectors.
The Mekong Tourism Coordinating office uses a mixed approach, where different initiatives are
managed with varying direct involvements. For example:
1. The Mekong Tourism Forum is managed directly through the MTCO in collaboration
with the host tourism ministry every year.
2. The Mekong Moments initiative is managed by a public-private framework, called
Destination Mekong.
3. The Mekong Innovative Startups in Tourism initiative was managed by the Mekong
Business Initiative.
It is best to assess which governance structure is more suitable for each corridor. The more
countries a corridor includes and the more initiatives it is tasked to manage, the more complex
the governance will become. On the other hand, budgetary considerations have a large impact
on governance structures. The lower the budget is, the more support will be required from
other organizations, and the private sector will be required to execute initiatives.
Enabling Legislation
Tourism corridors are often dependent on multi-lateral government relations, long-term
development, and changes in legislation. These factors are often not directly influenced by the
respective tourism ministries but rather by other government bodies. These development
areas, however, have an enormous impact on the success of cross-border tourism and thus
should be taken into consideration when formulating policies for cross-border tourism
corridors.
It is essential to include the following goals, depending on the format of the TC.
a) Air connectivity approvals, especially for regional carriers, are required to enable
easy connectivity for travelers once they are in the region and also for domestic
travelers.
b) Visa facilitation to enable easy border-crossing. It is recommended that countries
partner for visa facilitation regionally. The planned “Silk Visa” for the Turkic Silk
Road is a good example. Another example of this would be the development of the
ASEAN visa, which allows citizens of ASEAN countries to travel in the region
(Chapter 1.3.2) freely. Even though it did not address border crossings of non-
ASEAN travelers, the Mekong region benefited from easier traveling facilitation.
c) Strategic transportation (cross-border roads, bridges, railways) and other tourism
infrastructure are important.