COMCEC Tourism Outlook-2018
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state of international tourism in the OIC Member Countries as well as prospects and challenges
in this regard. Moreover, the participants also deliberated on the global trends and policies in
promoting MFT products and services and the challenges faced by the private sector in the
Member Countries in promoting MFT products and services. The participants emphasized the
importance of raising awareness about MFT, not only in the OIC Member Countries, but also in
the Non-OIC world. In this regard, the participants highlighted the significance of the effective
utilization of the existing mechanisms under the OIC/COMCEC, such as SMIIC’s technical
Committee on tourism, for enhancing cooperation in MFT.
Tourism has been defined as one of the six cooperation areas in the COMCEC Strategy , adopted
by the 4th Extraordinary Summit held on 14-15 August 2012 in Makkah Al-Mukarramah, Saudi
Arabia.
The Strategic Objective defined by the COMCEC Strategy is “Developing a sustainable and
competitive tourism sector in the OIC Member Countries.” With a view to achieving this
objective, the Strategy envisages five output areas, namely regulatory framework; training and
capacity building programs; private sector involvement; community based tourism programs
and marketing strategies.
Figure 0.3 Output Areas in the Tourism Section of the COMCEC Strategy
In order to achieve the objectives in the field of tourism, the COMCEC Strategy brings two new
and well-defined implementation instruments, namely Tourism Working Group and the
COMCEC Project Cycle Management (PCM).
COMCEC Tourism Working Group aims at providing a platform for the member states for
elaborating issues thoroughly, sharing their experience and best practices and creating a
common understanding to respond their common problems.
In this framework, the 1st Meeting of the COMCEC Tourism Working Group was held on April
25th, 2013 in Ankara, Turkey with the theme of “A New Trend in Sustainable Tourism
Development: Community Based Tourism in the OIC Member Countries.” The Meeting was
attended by the representatives of 15 Member States, which have notified their focal points for
Regulatory Framework
Capacity Building and Training Programs
Private Sector Involvement
Community-Based Tourism (CBT) Programs
Marketing Strategies