Myanmar joins in City travel expo

June 28, 2011
VNS

HCM CITY – Myanmar will be the fourth country besides Laos, Cambodia and Viet Nam participating in the HCM City International Travel Expo 2011 under the theme "Four Countries-One Destination".

"After joining the conference among four tourism ministers of Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Viet Nam at last year's ITE, Myanmar as an observer proposed to be a member of the event," Nguyen Van Tan, director of the representative agency of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in HCM City, said.

The organisers of ITE 2011 announced that nearly 70 per cent of booths at the exhibition had sold out, with the participation of foreign tourism organisations of India, Cambodia, Taiwan, Laos, South Korea, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Australia.

Leading travel companies registered to enter the event, as well as domestic tourism promotion organisations from 15 provinces.

The event is expected to attract 15,000 visitors and 210 exhibiting organisations and companies from 15 countries and regions, 170 buyers from North America, northern Europe, western Europe, Japan, South Korea, mainland China and ASEAN member countries.

The seventh edition of the ITE in HCM City will be held from September 14-17 at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Centre (SECC) in District 7.

"To satisfy the demand of buyers as surveyed, the event will last for four days instead of three days as previously," said Nguyen Bao Anh, deputy head of the Tourism Promotion Division under the city's Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism. It will open to trade visitors and buyers on the first two days, and to the public for the final two days.

La Quoc Khanh, deputy director of the HCM City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said the expo would have special programmes including destination and service introductions and promotions..

Several networking opportunities will be available, including invest-ment workshops to develop tourism potential in the four countries. – VNS