Content is key and also sensitive

The effort to co-brand the ASEAN tourism campaign as Southeast Asia is set to be closely watched by the Myanmar tourism authorities who say they will hold the ASEAN Tourism Association (ASEANTA) responsible if the new marketing campaign website begins to be used for anti-Myanmar criticism.

The statement was made by Directorate of Hotels & Tourism, Ministry of Hotels and Tourism,  director general, U Htay Aung, , at the ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF) last month, in response to a question about how Myanmar would respond if the website, which is being developed with financial assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development, begins to see a rush of bloggers who see it as another opportunity to step up pressure on the military regime.

Myanmar has been deeply suspicious of the real agenda behind the campaign, especially as the USAID’s own mission statement clearly states that it “provides economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the United States.”

In the various ASEAN meetings, the Myanmar delegation has sought guarantees from the consultants hired to execute this tourism component of the ASEAN Competitiveness Enhancement project that the Myanmar tourism industry will be fairly and unbiasedly represented on the website.

However, the question about potentially critical blogs caught Htay Aung off-guard. He admitted that it had not come up in the preparatory discussions amongst ASEAN tourism leaders but then added that as ASEANTA, the private sector grouping of ASEAN travel industry associations, was the collaborating partner in the project, it would have to be responsible for controlling the content.

Contacted by email to comment, ASEANTA board members did not respond. One board member who hit the reply button to his colleagues, and mistakenly left all the cc fields intact, effectively suggested exactly that course of action.

Another question was emailed to ASEAN Secretary General, Dr Surin Pitsuwan, asking whether the ASEAN tourism organisations had discussed the issue of blog comments critical of their respective countries, and if so, how they resolved to deal with it? Dr Surin did not respond either.

This lack of response on even the most basic questions is only heightening suspicion about whether the ASEAN tourism fraternity, especially ASEANTA, has done its homework adequately and why it has such a low tolerance level for probing questions on the management and handling of the new campaign.

One stakeholder responding adequately to questions is USAID, which is putting up US$4 million for the project over the period 2008-13. USAID’s Bangkok-based spokesman Hal Lipper outlined the various procedural and check-and-balance regulations that govern its relationship with primary contractors and the issue of procurement contracts (in this case Nathan Associates which shares an office with the Kenan Institute in Bangkok).

He said, “In line with the requirements of the contract’s scope of work, Nathan follows its established procurement procedures to obtain necessary services through subcontracts. USAID has no direct relationship with the subcontractors, only with the prime contractor.”

The sub-contractor for the website www.southeastasia.org that will be the centrepiece of the campaign, it turns out, is the meta-search engine wego.com, which will be bolted on behind the scenes to facilitate bookings.

At the media briefing during the ATF, wego.com’s CEO, Martin Symes, highlighted the portal’s financial strength by saying it was “backed by News Corp”, the media and entertainment empire controlled by Rupert Murdoch.

When the link to News Corp’s News Digital Media were publicised by this travel publication and Travel Impact Newswire, it drew a sharp response from Mr Symes who described wego.com as an “ASEAN-based business employing 24 ASEAN residents and taxpayers.”

However, Mr Symes declined to disclose wego.com’s shareholding structure, saying only that Australia-based News Digital Media, an asset of News Corp, owned a “significant minority” stake in the company.

He said, “We were approached by ACE to provide travel search functionality for the southeastasia.org site in early 2009. We negotiated an agreement with them and ASEANTA in good faith and on terms and conditions substantially similar to other distribution relationships. The details of the agreement and relationship have never been discussed with our shareholder News Digital Media Pty Ltd or anyone else at News Corp.”

Mr Symes added, “The traffic and revenue Wego will receive from being on the website is small. To imply that somehow this deal will be the making of Wego is utter nonsense.”

However, presentations made to ASEAN NTOs and ASEANTA about the marketing plans for the www.southeastasia.org showed plans for generating thousands of hits on the site. If they lead to bookings, it would yield a substantial revenue stream for wego.com, which has to split the earnings with ASEANTA.

The account for online marketing to build traffic on the website has been outsourced to Qais, a Singapore web design consultancy company, chaired by Keith Timimi, who stated on his website http://www.qaisconsulting.com com that he was a “founding investor in Wego.Com”.