Sustainable Destination Management

Strategies in the OIC Member Countries

The general recommendation is to follow the best practice examples of a public-private

partnership model. Using a tourism advisory group, similar to the Mekong Tourism Advisory

Group, helps to gain valuable insight from industry experts from the public and private sectors.

Every structure should also incorporate operational considerations. Even though partners in a

framework might decide not to endorse a corridor formally, it will create administrative and

operational work. It is thus recommended for multi-lateral partners to decide how to address

any work raised through a formal or informal corridor. Administrative action might be taken

over through a working group, one of the partners, or a management structure within the

corridor.

There is a wide range of structures to manage cross-border corridor initiatives. The governance

can be hands-off with little cooperative involvement from a regional organization, hands-on,

where a regional tourism organization manages all aspects of the corridor or a mixture of both

with a high focus on individual local 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 involvement. For example:

The Mekong Tourism Forum is handled directly through the MTCO in collaboration

with one different tourism ministry every year.

The Mekong Moments initiative is managed by a public-private framework, called

Destination Mekong

The Mekong Innovative Startups in Tourism Initiative was led by the Mekong Business

Initiative

It is best to assess which governance structure is more suited to 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 massive

impact on governance structures. The lower the budget, 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 usually not

directly influenced by the respective tourismministries but by other government bodies. These

development areas, however, have a significant 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.

Air connectivity approvals, especially for regional carriers, are required to enable

easy connectivity for travelers once they are in the region and for domestic

travelers.

Visa facilitation to enable easy border-crossing. It is recommended that countries

partner on visa facilitation regionally. The planned “Silk Visa” of the Turkic Silk

Road is a good example. Another example of this would be the development of the