TPO(Tourism Promotion Organization for Asia Pacific Cities) is an international organization established in 2002 with the blessing of the 5th Asian-Pacific City Summit. TPO was borne to be an inter-city network to promote the exchanges and development of tourism industry among major cities in the Asia Pacific region.

With the advent of the 21st Century where the urbanization of the society is heading for its full blossom, Asian-Pacific City Summit agreed that the city is an epicenter to enhance the quality of people's life and to lead the development of civil society. In an effort to realize better and durable cities, the summit also recognized the importance of the preservation of environment and tradition belonging to individual cities and encouraged the communication and exchanges among civil societies.

On the basis of such an agreement, Asian-Pacific Summit emphasized the role of tourism in enhancing mutual understanding among people through human exchanges. And the Summit offered the TPO as a platform to drive systematic development and promotion of tourism industry in the Asia Pacific region.

TPO functions as a network among city governments and private entities in the arena of tourism. The organization is endowed with the responsibility to encourage its members to work together to support tourism industry. The goal of organization is translated into a number of projects in the field: exchange of information and opinions among the member cities, marketing of tourist destinations, developing new tourism products, fostering human resources in the tourism sector etc.

TPO began with the membership of 25 cities from 13 countries in 2002. The organization is currently further enriched with the increased commitment of 132 city governments and 57-odd non-government entities representing tourism-related associations, educational and research institutes, and private sectors.