ASEAN tourism ministers have agreed to promote travel within the region as part of efforts to boost tourism arrivals which have been dwindling due to the global financial turmoil.

And the youth market, in particular, is one segment that they will be working on, the ministers of the 10-member grouping announced at a joint press conference in Hanoi on Friday afternoon.

The ministers justed ended their annual meeting held under the auspices of the annual Asean Tourism Forum, which is held in Vietnam this year. The meeting was attended by the ministers from Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, along with tourism chiefs of China, Japan and South Korea.

Despite the world financial meltdown, the total international visitor arrivals for last year into Asean still grew 7 per cent to hit 58 million. And Asean travellers accounted for half of those arrivals.

To try to mitigate the effects of long-haul tourism business drying up, the Asean ministers said they will focus on travel within the region. They have asked a group of tourism officials to work out 'a tactical programme which offers cost-effective tour packages for Intra-Asean travellers and other key markets of Asean'.

During the 12th annual meeting, the ministers discussed the progress of the plan to integrate the tourism sector within the region and reported that visa-free travel for Asean citizens within the region was becoming a reality, although some member countries still required visa for 'security reasons'. They said they will continue to push for visa-free entry into Asean-member countries for all their citizens.

A new Asean Tourism Strategic Plan was also approved during the two-day meeting which would look at developments in the sector from 2011 to 2015.

They also declared this year to be a Youth Travellers' Year within the region, with various national tourism bodies expected to work together to develop new campaigns to get young people to travel in the cooperative zone.

Some 466 foreign tourism companies and 590 sellers attended the week-long Asean Tourism Forum in Hanoi.