The press conference had the presences of Vice Chairman of VITA Vu The Binh; Director of Tourism Marketing Department (VNAT) Le Tuan Anh; Deputy Director of Ha Noi Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism Tuong Phi Chien, Director of EU Project Vu Quoc Tri; representatives of enterprises attending the mart and media agencies.

Speaking at the press conference, Vice Chairman of VITA Vu The Binh emphasized VITM Ha Noi is the largest international tourism fair in Viet Nam with regional scale. The fair aims to enhance promotion of Viet Nam tourism and create many opportunities in cooperation and investment for domestic and international tourism enterprises.

The 3^rd Viet Nam International Travel Mart (VITM Ha Noi 2015) organized by VITA in collaboration with VNAT, Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and Ha Noi Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism will take place from 3 to 6 April 2015 at Viet Nam Exhibition and Fair Centre (148 Giang Vo Street, Ha Noi). Until now, there are 654 tour operators, hotels/resorts, tourism service enterprises, tourism organizations/associations, airlines registering to take part in the fair. The official number of booths is 496, including 355 domestic ones of 44 provinces and cities in Viet Nam and 141 international ones of 24 countries and territories, including the Republic of Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong (China), the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Singapore, Cambodia, Indonesia, Russia, France, United Arab Emirates, Australia, Greece, Turkey, Kazakhstan, Czech, Hungarian, Poland, Slovakia and Kenya.

In VITM Ha Noi 2015, many diversified conferences, workshops, destination presentations will be held, such as seminars on “Responsible tourism and cultural heritage”, “Solutions to improve the attractiveness of Ha Noi tourism”, “Tourism Stimulus Program” and “Implementation of Resolution No.92 of the Government on the solutions to develop tourism”, “Modification of Viet Nam tourism promotion overseas”; discussions on “Developing Indian and Middle East tourist source markets”, “Developing England and German tourist source markets”, training course on Green Lotus Label; introductions of destinations of Korea, Malaysia, Greece, the Philippines; press conferences “Introduction of new tourist products of France and Australia”, “Training course for tourist guides in Japan’, “Introduction of new tourism products of Viet Nam and other foreign countries”; Viet Nam Airlines presentation. Besides, art performance programs to introduce traditional cultures of Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia and Viet Nam will also be organized at the outdoor stage to serve visitors.

This year’s VITM will also introduce numerous promotions and discounts to serve the demands of visitors and enhance tourism stimulus. Airlines are expected to provide 15,000 promotional tickets (from VND190,000/ticket for international flights and from VND333,000/ticket for domestic flights). Tour operators will also launch 8,000 promotional tours with 20-50% discount. In particular, visitors to VITM Ha Noi 2015 also have the opportunity to participate in lucky draws to receive free air tickets and coupons of hotels and restaurants.

Besides, to support tourism enterprises at home and abroad, especially visitors in searching for tourism products, Viet Nam Society of Travel Agents in cooperation with Vietnam Airlines built VITM Online – an online travel fair model. The system will be introduced and exploited initially in VITM Ha Noi 2015. In addition, to provide timely information on the activities of the fair, the organization board of the fair will publish four issues of “VITM Ha Noi 2015 Panorama” (Vietnamese and English version), each of 1,000 copies for free delivery to booths, enterprises and visitors at the fair.

VITM Ha Noi 2015 is expected to attract 3,000 trade visitors and 65,000 public visitors.

Thu Giang