International travel fair attracts quality foreign buyers

The 5th International Travel Expo in HCMC (ITE HCMC) this October will attract more than 150 buyers from 25 countries, up one-third from last year’s event, the organizer said on Wednesday.
La Quoc Khanh, deputy director of the city’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said that 144 international buyers had registered to join the event, plus 14 other buyers currently doing the registration procedures. In addition, one group of ten travel agents from Hong Kong will also come to the event under the arrangement of Vietnam Airlines, Khanh told a press conference here on Wednesday.
“It’s a big number of foreign buyers,” he told the meeting in the five-star Majestic Hotel.
Khanh said that the organizer spent nearly VND2 billion arranging for all of buyers to come in, besides financial offers from corporate sponsors,. The budget comes from the city’s tourism promotion budget and from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
Up to now, over 1,200 prescheduled appoinments between buyers and sellers have been made, up around 400 appoinments compared to the event in 2008.
Bui Viet Thuy Tien, director of Asian Trails Co., Ltd., told the Daily that the quality of international buyers for this event is better than last year. “I’ve seen good buyers in the list. I have advised the organizing committee to invite some more good buyers,” said Tien, who is one member of the panel to select buyers.
The yearly travel expo will take place in Phu Tho Exhibition Center in District 11 from October 1 to 3. The city’s tourism department is cooperating with VINEXAD and IIR Exhibitions Pte Ltd to organize the event.
Main activities at the event include a tourism exhibition, buyer-seller meetings, familiarization trips, and a tourism conference.
Khanh said that more than 300 exhibitors who are both local and foreign travel companies, hotels, tourism departments, airlines as well as travel services providers have put their names down to join the event compared with 220 of last year. The exhibition space has now been booked 95% now.