Students (from left: Trista, Amy, Ying Tong, Mark and Leisy) from TAS at the APEC Cruise Forum
It isn’t often that a student gets a chance to attend a major international forum such as the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation) Cruise Forum so a few of us from The Tourism Academy @ Sentosa were really fortunate that the opportunity came to attend this important forum on 28 May 2009 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel at Scotts Road.
To be honest, I was a little disappointed that such a large scale convention took place in a relatively modest-sized ballroom; it was nonetheless an interesting experience for me. There were local and international speakers from New Zealand, Australia and Italy. I was pleasantly surprised that I could understand their accents, especially the Italian accent.
During the forum, many points were raised. The first half of the forum focused more on plans to open up the Asian cruise market. Actually, my peers and I had our doubts about the readiness of Asians for this idea. I personally feel that this development will be a rather long process, even with the cooperation and support of governments and travel agents. Given the conservative stance of most Asians, I feel that it would take some time for the target market to absorb, digest and accept cruising as a new form of tourism, and become repeat visitors in order to sustain the market.
The advantages and disadvantages of introducing cruising to South East Asia (SEA), which is the next big, upcoming and untapped market that the ASEAN Cruise Working Group (ACWG) sees, are similar to those of tourism that I learnt in my first semester subject Foundations of Tourism (FOT). During the forum, Mr Kevin Leong, Chairman of ACWG and Senior Director of Singapore Tourism Board (STB), mentioned that out of many other benefits, there will be socio-economic benefits for SEA as the market develops. The Cruise market will help to bring in infrastructure, services as well as tourists; in other words an economic boost to the more remote areas of SEA. On the other hand though, this development will also bring about environmental depletions and social pollutions to societies.
I also found it interesting to see how New Zealand is using cruising as their ‘extra land’ for tourists, due to their limited land space for tourist activities, as most parts of its land mass are protected nature reserves. Cruising is hence one of New Zealand’s most important and fastest growing market, which helps New Zealand to generate more revenue.
Over lunch, I was pleased to find out that many people were familiar with my school The Tourism Academy @ Sentosa. However, there still seems to be a common misunderstanding, even in the tourism industry, that our school was training students to work in the two Integrated Resorts (IR) in future. Maybe one of the reasons is that one of the IRs is on Sentosa, and just across from our campus!
All in all, this forum gave me an opportunity to meet new people and see things in a new light. It is definitely a remarkable experience for me and if given another chance, I would gladly attend it again.
Written by first year student Choo Ying Tong
June 2009
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