Delegates attending next year’s ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) in Brunei have been advised to bring their own if they want an alcoholic drink during the event as the show in Muslim Brunei will be ‘dry’. It may also be advisable to secure accommodation early, as the host city only has around 2,600 rooms and event organiser Brunei Tourism is expecting a strong turnout.

Faten Salwati Muhmud Sharani, MICE officer for Brunei Tourism speaking at IT&CMA in Bangkok said preliminary estimates suggested around 1,600 delegates would attend, but she said this could increase to as many as 2000 delegates based on previous shows and positive feedback she had received from the trade.

She said she did not see any problems with accommodation during ATF for delegates, but said the host city would probably post a ‘house full’ sign during the event.

The ATF is a co-operative regional effort to promote the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region as one tourist destination. This annual event involves all the tourism industry sectors of the 10 member nations of ASEAN: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Myanmar and Vietnam.

Each year, the hosting of ATF is rotated among the member countries. ATF 2010 marks the 29th staging of the event since its inauguration in Malaysia in 1981.

The upcoming ATF will be held at the newly built Bridex Centre 21-28 January 2010.
Brunei last hosted the event in 2001.

Source: Impactpub.com.au

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