ASEAN nations promote tourism in city

Vietnam and its ASEAN neighbors Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar will introduce their tourism products to 200 international customers on September 13-15 at the International Travel Expo HCMC 2012.
According to organizers, Cambodia and Myanmar will introduce their heritage tourism products, while the products of Vietnam and Laos focus on sea tourism and ecotourism respectively. The four countries will bring to the expo their typical products and jointly promote to attract international tourists.
Nguyen Van Tuan, general director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), said at a press conference in HCMC on Thursday that the tourism ministers of the four countries would meet at the expo to discuss tourism cooperation.
After that, mayors of cities in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, including Phnom Penh, Vientiane, Yangon, Bangkok and HCMC, will also meet in the city and promote tourism cooperation between the four countries and the Mekong Sub-region with specific activities to create competitiveness in the area.
“Through previous travel expos, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar have had several joint tourism promotion programs. But now we want to expand the scale and cooperate with countries of the Mekong Sub-region to create a greater competitiveness,” said Tuan.
The expo will take place at Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center in District 7 from Thursday until next Saturday.
According to organizers, the expo will feature 233 booths of travel firms and hotels from 19 nations and 26 local tourism promotion agencies. Around 200 customers from 33 markets will buy international tourism services and meet partners at the expo.
In addition to meetings for travel firms, the expo will include programs for tourists.