Long a dream for the region's tourism operators, an Asia-wide single-visa programme is now definitely back on the public-sector agenda, with Thailand taking a key role in the scheme's promotion.

Influential leaders have thrown their weight behind the plan, saying that the tourism industry in Thailand would be one of the main beneficiaries of the single-visa scheme.

While talk of such a scheme has been around for years, and there have been many false starts, there now are signs of more concrete progress towards the plan that is an essential first step if other developments, such as the Pan-Asian Highway system, are to fulfil their full potential.

In fact, across Asia, there are now three such schemes under consideration – the "Five Countries, One Destination" initiative adopted by Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar, an Asean proposal, and a third by SAARC, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, that groups India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Maldives and Bhutan.

On top of that, South Korea has even proposed a similar visa system to allow free travel between Korea, Japan and China, although the obstacles to that make Asean negotiations appear simple.

Such schemes have precedents elsewhere. The so-called Schengen visa scheme in Europe, which allows single-visa travel between Iceland, Norway and 13 European Union nations, has been running since 1995, confounding the doomsayers at the time of its introduction.

In Asia the "Five Countries, One Destination" agreed in 2003 by Mekong region group Ayeyawady – Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy or ACMECS is the furthest advanced.

Even without the single visa, that agreement represents a welcome commitment in several areas, including the development of tourism by the five countries and has already borne fruit with the Tourism Authority of Thailand and Ministry of Sports and Tourism this year launching a new website, AcmecsDestination.com, to promote travel in the Mekong region.

But still the Mekong region-wide visa scheme is not quite yet a reality. While it was originally planned to have been up and running by now, details of visa fees and the synchronisation of the two countries' independent databases of blacklisted foreigners have still to be worked out.

But when up and running, the scheme is expected to show benefits beyond the tourism industry, with the five countries developing closer information and communications technology ties, as well as the use of online approval at border checkpoints that will help trade and cross-border transportation, tele-medicine and distance education.

Thailand already has a single-visa agreement with Cambodia under the Acmecs scheme, the countries having agreed to be its pilot plan. That is expected to reinforce the tourism industry and boost investment, particularly after the opening of Suvarnabhumi Airport, adding strength to its claims of hub-status.

The plan is expected to have an immediate impact. With an extremely limited number of direct long-haul flights from Europe or America that land in Cambodia, a single visa between the two countries would simplify onward travel from Suvarnabhumi and Cambodia to the benefit of both countries. But Thailand is also taking a leading role in the Asean initiative.

In July this year, Thanittha Maneechote, Director of the Office of Tourism Development of the Tourism and Sports Ministry, raised the issue at the meeting of national-level Asean tourism agencies in Chiang Mai. She said the single visa, which is valid for travelling in all Asean member countries, will save tourists time to apply for a visa for each country and thus help increase the number of visitors to the Asean region and also income from tourism. It has received solid support from beyond Thai borders, too.

Malaysia's former Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Mohamad has called for the Asean countries to be promoted as "the most colourful region in the world". He has urged the further development of already booming intra-regional tourism flows with the promotion of more intra-Asean travel among foreign tourists.

Key to this would be a single visa for entry to all Asean countries.

"Wouldn't it be wonderful to receive tourists, where we have one visa for Southeast Asian countries. Asean countries should consider requiring a single visa for tourists. Let us make it easy to travel from one Asean country to another... we should have simple travel documents," he said recently.

Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei already permit tourists to enter their respective countries without visa for two weeks, and with the start of the Thai-Cambodian initiative, the Pan-Asean vision could be coming closer to reality.

The promotion of one-visa travel has the backing of the Asean Tourism Association President, Elly Hutabarat, who says that it is needed for the region to "gear up" for growth. While Aseanta has long been promoting the idea of viewing Asean countries as a "single destination", that idea needs to be cemented in the minds of both private and public sector.

"We have to have seamless travel within Asean, smartcards for the Asean traveller, and a one-visa policy," Ms Hutabarat says.

"Some people say it's impossible... but it's up to us to make it possible."

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A well-maintained dual carriageway sweeps past Mae Sot to the "Friendship Bridge" that connects Thailand to Myanmar with a graceful arc across the Moei River. It is one of the crucial connecting points of the Pan-Asian Highway that, it is hoped, will one day connect Singapore with Istanbul.

For now, there it stops in a formidable border post, the approaches to the bridge encased in a three-metre wire fence. Mae Sot one day may be a rest stop on the ambitious new Silk Road, but for now it remains a terminus.

But in South Korea, there is great optimism. The government there plans, by 2010, to erect signs with the acronym AH, standing for Asian Highway, on highways leading out of the country that will eventually lead to the network. But the signposts look like being the easy part.

The Pan-Asian Highway has been on the agenda since 1959, the brainchild of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP).

While the Cold War intervened to block that dream from becoming a reality, co-operation between UNESCAP and Asian governments has already improved the region's highway systems. But the aim of establishing a 140,000-km highway system by 2010 that will criss-cross Asia's 32 nations and connect with Europe, still seems a long way off.

That said, the initiative has been given new life in the past 10 years and regional governments managed to seal an effective agreement in July 2005.

Thailand has been a leader in trying to advance the project, with the Ministry of Transport authorised in 2004 to sign several necessary agreements.

While the highway system will open up new trade and communications links across the region, Thailand will benefit more than most from its position in the centre of the network. But if the dream is to become a reality there is a vast amount of work yet to be done. Roads must be built or upgraded within each country to common international standards – standards in many cases not yet agreed.

Politically the work is even more difficult – border formalities need to be agreed, common vehicle insurance requirements thrashed out and security fears allayed.

One problem to the successful navigation to these shoals is the lack of an overseeing body to encourage and, in the final analysis, force commitments already made.

While no one can deny UNESCAP's own commitment to the project, having kept the dream alive for nearly 50 years, there is little the body can do to keep all parties on track.

UNESCAP officials say that they hope the idea will take off in the minds of the regions' citizens and closer ties forged between neighbours "the same way it has happened in Europe, because of their road and rail links". But therein lies the problem.

It is still uncertain as to whether it was easier transit links that brought Europe together or whether closer ties led to easier links.

Nevertheless, one of the most encouraging signs in Asia comes from the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS), which includes Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam, and Yunnan Province of China. This grouping has made extraordinary strides in closer co-operation on a range of matters in recent years and has already overcome significant obstacles over the Pan-Asian Highway.

The project in the GMS is also on sounder footing than in some places, being supported financially and technically by the Asian Development Bank.

The countries have already overcome major problems resulting from land clearance, compensation to affected citizens and their relocation, and the necessary infrastructure to link Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar due for completion by 2008.

By some accounts, more than 80% of the Pan-Asian network is ready, although cynics suggest it is the remaining 20% that poses the biggest problem – and expense. Some US$18 billion is estimated to be necessary to complete vital links and upgrades.

There is little doubt that the project's completion is nearer than it has ever been. The political will shown over the Single Asian Visa is a good sign that regional governments are prepared to grapple with the difficult issues that will include entry permissions, quotas, customs inspections and insurance.

There are also signs that the region is seeing clearly for the first time the benefits of closer transit links, with rail rather than road leading the way – the reconnection of the so-called "Silk Road" now closer than ever along railway tracks that spread ever eastward.

But what is really needed now is the kindling of public enthusiasm if, several years from now, with Asians able to travel to and through each others' countries with the ease Europeans have, we are to look back and wonder what all the fuss was about.