Supranationalist Alliances and Tourism: Insights from ASEAN and SAARC

This paper examines the influences of international free-trade alliances/regional trading blocs on tourism development. While relatively few of these coalitions mention tourism specifically, most of them deal with issues that are directly pertinent to tourism, such as environmental conservation, flows of people, regional promotion, infrastructure and transportation and trade in goods and services. This paper scans these issues in the tourism context as they pertain specifically to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). While the paper argues primarily that such alliances have potential for positive outcomes, their negative effects are also considered and many of the roadblocks to achieving successful multilateral regional blocs are highlighted.