Europe tourism offices, Thai Airways in joint promotion program

Representatives of Munich and Salzburg tourism offices and Munich Airport are working with Thai Airways International over a major program to promote the “Jewels of Romantic Europe” destinations in the Vietnamese market.
Narinthorn Purnagupta, new general manager of Thai Airways in Vietnam, told the Daily on Thursday that executives from Germany’s Munich Tourist Office and Munich Airport as well as Austria’s Salzburg Tourist Office would introduce the destinations to some 150 travel agents in HCMC on Friday.
The European destinations cover Bavarian cities, villages, castles, architecture and shopping centers; Salzburg that has earned its reputation for landscape and as the birthplace of musical genius Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart; the Tirol blend of nature and culture in the heart of the Alps among other worth-visiting sites.
Florian Pötsch, head of travel industry and hub marketing at Munich Airport, told reporters in HCMC on Thursday the promotion program was launched in Vietnam for the first time because of tourist overnights last year up 68.3% year-on-year from Southeast Asia in Munich and the growing interest in Vietnam for holidays in Europe in recent years.
Eckard Kremer, regional director of the Munich Tourist Office in Asia Pacific and the Middle East, told the Daily at the news briefing that Munich’s leading visitor-generating markets in Southeast Asia were Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia, but Vietnam was a market of great potential given the fast increasing number of middle-income earners and people traveling to Europe for leisure and business.
As a partner of the co-host of the two-day promotion program, Thai Airways will transport people in Vietnam to Munich where they can board on flights of its partner airlines to travel to places of interest in Europe. Purnagupta of Thai Airways said the airline would collaborate with travel agents in Vietnam to offer packages that take in the tourist sites in Europe, either for holiday or business.
Thai Airways currently flies twice a day to and from each of HCMC and Hanoi, and daily between Bangkok and Munich. Purnagupta said the airline provided connecting periods of less than two hours at its hub Suvarnabhumi Airport for the flights departing from the two cities of Vietnam in the morning and the service from Bangkok to Munich.
Kremer said major tourism programs would be launched in Indonesia, Korea, Japan and China in the coming months to attract more Asian travelers to the European destinations.