Tourism officials from 13 Asian countries appealed to other governments on Saturday not to hurt the region's recovery from SARS by indiscriminately discouraging travel following the car bombing of Jakarta's Marriott Hotel.

The appeal came at a meeting of officials from China, Japan, South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations who were discussing how to revive tourism after the outbreak of the deadly disease, which devastated airlines, hotels and other travel-dependent businesses.

The group, which includes Cabinet ministers and officials of national tourism boards, "strongly condemn this act of terrorism as a heinous and ruthless crime against humanity," said a joint statement issued at the end of the one-day meeting in Beijing.

It said they "call on the international community to avoid indiscriminately advising their citizens to refrain from visiting, as such measures could help achieve the objective of terrorists."

The United States, Britain and other countries issued advisories against non-essential travel to Indonesia following the Jakarta bombing last Tuesday, which killed 10 people and wounded 150.

Officials at the Beijing meeting declared support for efforts to catch the Jakarta bombers and said such attacks wouldn't derail efforts to repair damage to tourism from severe acute respiratory syndrome.

In the statement, the ministers condemned the terrorist act as a heinous and ruthless crime against humanity and a crime against all religions that should be condemned by all religions.

He Guangwei, director of the China National Tourism Administration, said that the joint statement targeted not only the tragic incident in Jakarta, but all terrorist activities.

"Security is the fundamental thing for our tourism industry," he said. "We issued the joint statement in the interests of creating a secure environment for tourism."

Indonesian Minister of Culture and Tourism Thamrin Bachri said the tourism ministers discussed measures to enhance security and prevent terrorist attacks on the Asian tourist industry.

The suggested measures included sharing information among the ASEAN member countries and China, Japan and South Korea, and closer coordination between tourism authorities and other government agencies, he said.

Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN Tran Duc Minh said the gathered countries agreed to stage joint promotional activities aimed at the outside world. The activities will be designed to let the world know the effective measures that the region has taken to prevent terrorist attacks and other risks such as SARS.

"We solemnly declare to the world that tourism in our region has returned to normal, the safety and well-being of tourists to our region from all over the world is safeguarded and protected," the ministers said in the statement.

SARS, which killed more than 800 people worldwide, most of them in Asia, devastated travel as tourists and businesspeople heeded warnings to avoid infected areas.

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