Conceptualizing inter‐regional partnership for tourism promotion: In case of the East Asia inter‐regional tourism forum (EATOF)

Tourism in East Asia is in transition. One of the most striking movements in international tourism arena in East Asia is the emergence of local initiative toward building a joint network of destination marketing. The East Asia Inter‐Regional Tourism Forum (EATOF) which has been embarked in September 2000 is a concrete example of this sort. Even though a regional association is a newly rising trend in tourism, conceptualizing a model of inter‐regional tourism cooperation has been scarcely attempted. The current paper is devoted to fill the academic lacuna by suggesting a systematic framework of inter‐regional association of tourism promotion. Then the case of the EATOF was critically analyzed and evaluated under the framework of the proposed type of networking. It is argued in this paper that the inter‐regional tourism cooperation is neither irrelevant with the regional situation, nor inconsistent with the theoretical logic.