The International Travel Expo Ho Chi Minh City (ITE HCMC 2024), one of the yearly national-level events in the tourism industry of Vietnam, has concluded. Through a series of engaging and diverse professional activities, it received high praise from domestic and international delegates. In particular, ITE HCMC was honored with the “Asia’s Best Trade Show” at the World MICE Awards ceremony. Once again, ITE HCMC reaffirms its position as the most important, reputable, and influential tourism and trade promotion event in the Asia region.
Vietnam tourism aims for green transformation, NET ZERO tourism
In the context of increasing attention to sustainable tourism, which has become an important development direction for many countries, including Vietnam. Sustainable tourism is considered a crucial step for promoting green economy and achieving sustainable growth. Its ultimate goal is to reach Net Zero (zero emission) by 2050.
With the theme "Sustainable Travel, Creating Future", the ITE HCMC 2024 over 2 days from 5th and 6th September, in collaboration with domestic and international agencies, units successfully organized 09 seminars and in-depth forums. The event attracted thousands of delegates and featured the participation of 16 international speakers and 39 domestic speakers discussing important issues. Notable highlights include:
- The high-level Tourism Forum "Green Transformation, NET ZERO Travel & Tourism - Creating the Future" was organized by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism in collaboration with the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City. The event attracted nearly 300 delegates, including government leaders, leaders of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, leaders of the People's Committee, representatives from the Tourism Departments of provinces and cities nationwide, leaders of the International Cooperation Department, as well as leaders of the National Authority of Tourism and its subordinate units. At the Forum, Minister Nguyen Van Hung has identified the important tasks of the tourism industry in the coming time, including: developing tourism in conjunction with technology, using renewable energy sources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions to create unique sustainable products to attract tourists, enhancing destination management, eliminating plastic waste to improve the effectiveness of tourism development policies, especially digital transformation. Develop diverse forms of tourism with a focus on enhancing existing strengths, advantages, and development potential in Vietnam, such as eco-tourism, agro-tourism, exploring and experiencing natural and cultural heritages. In addition, tourism also has the task of creating employment opportunities, sharing community benefits, and preserving the traditional cultural values of the ethnic.
- The conference "Empowering Local Communities through Sustainable Tourism" organized by the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism, the Asia-Pacific Regional Office of the UN Tourism, and the Asia-Pacific Tourism Exchange Center (APTEC) has attracted the attention of nearly 200 experts and researchers. In addition, representatives of international organizations, along with management agencies in the tourism sector, were invited to attend. The event was highly regarded for its content, with speakers and delegates focusing on sharing lessons learned, effective community-based tourism models, and identifying challenges and obstacles to sustainable tourism development and empowering local communities through sustainable tourism. The conference also concluded that community-based tourism is an effective way to promote sustainable tourism and practice responsible tourism.
- Besides, a series of seminars including: "Leveraging AI in international communication and sustainable tourism" organized by PR Newswire; "Net Zero tourism database and practice criteria" in collaboration with the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Magazine; "Orientation for promoting sustainable tourism development through ESG" organized by Oxalis Adventure Company, Znews.vn Knowledge Magazine, and VnExpress Online Newspaper. The international conference “International conference on promoting responsible tourism associated with nature and wildlife protection and saying no to ivory” is organized by the World Wide Fund for Nature in Vietnam (WWF-Vietnam); The seminar “The power of communication in fostering sustainable development” organized by the Vietnam Public Relations Network - VNPR has been highly regarded for its organizational work, expertise, as well as for bringing effective content and solutions through the exchange of information and sharing of experiences from domestic and international speakers.
- In addition, specialized seminars introducing destinations include: Seminar "Halal friendly Services - Where the global Halal travel meet" organized by the National HALAL Company of Vietnam in collaboration, and Seminar "Enhancing India tourism through culinary and cultural experiences” implemented by the Consulate General of India have been successfully organized. With many outstanding and meaningful activities, the programs not only receive lively interaction between speakers and participants but also contribute to strengthening friendly relations between countries, promoting economy, trade, and investment.
In general, the series of seminar activities and specialized forums at the ITE HCMC 2024 have received positive attention and high praise for their expertise and organizational work. They have brought together hundreds of senior leaders and tourism experts from both domestic and international backgrounds. This is the result of close collaboration between the organizing committee and relevant government agencies to connect influential leaders and experts.
Enhance destination promotion
The ITE HCMC 2024 is a great opportunity to promote the destination, as emphasized by Minister Nguyen Van Hung in his opening speech at the "High-level Tourism Forum".
The ITE HCMC 2024 has successfully spread the image and culture of Vietnam to international friends, receiving positive support from domestic and foreign media units.
For the first time, the world's leading television channel CNN directly promoted the event on the program Marketplace Asia. The event marks a milestone in the deep and wide cooperation between Ho Chi Minh City and CNN in the future. Accordingly, the city wishes to further enhance coordination with CNN and its partners in media activities, continuing to broadcast promotional videos of Ho Chi Minh City tourism on CNN channel in international communication campaigns. At the same time, we hope that CNN will collaborate to produce programs introducing the culture, people, and unique experiences in Ho Chi Minh City to international audiences, in order to attract more tourists to the city. With CNN's global coverage network, images and information about Ho Chi Minh City will continue to be transmitted to millions of viewers around the world.
Besides, the communication work is highly appreciated when the number of news articles and images about the event reached 2,700 news articles, including nearly 1,000 news articles about the event posted on major domestic media channels and over 1,700 news articles updating information about the Fair, the activities, and the participating units in the Fair on international media channels.
The activities of the Communication Ambassadors of the ITE HCMC 2024 have also received millions of views and interactions on each Ambassador's TikTok channel. These Ambassadors are beauty queens from CLMTV countries, including Miss International Cambodia 2023 Elina Somnang, Miss Peace Laos 2024 Louise Chanthalangsy, Miss World Myanmar Yoon Theint Theint Nway, Miss Thailand 2024 Dinsoree Kereninda, and Miss Continental 2022 Lê Nguyễn Bảo Ngọc.
One of the prominent highlights of the ITE HCMC Fair is the special experiential tour program for international buyers and the press. This is considered an opportunity to widely promote the advantages and potential of tourism in Vietnam to international friends. Especially, it introduces new products to tourists and approaches sustainable tourism development. The organizers of ITE HCMC 2024 have collaborated with travel agencies to organize 11 "green tourism tours" for international delegates and journalists. These tours feature unique activities such as using eco-friendly vehicles, bicycles, experiencing public transportation, and participating in special practical activities, etc. The activities have attracted over 400 registered delegates.
Expanding the tourism market to Vietnam
The International Travel Expo Ho Chi Minh City is increasingly expanding in scale and improving in quality. With the participation of 700 delegates from 38 countries and territories, the delegates represent national tourism organizations, tourism research units, companies, travel agencies, accommodation establishments, airlines, transportation units, and large corporations, etc. This clearly demonstrates the special attention that domestic and international friends have for ITE HCMC 2024.
During the 3-day event, ITE HCMC 2024 recorded approximately 26,000 visitors and successfully facilitated over 11,460 B2B business meetings between 220 international buyers and more than 450 exhibitors. This provided opportunities for networking, negotiation, and signing future cooperation agreements. In addition to key tourism markets such as Australia, the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, India, and the Middle East region, etc. For the first time, ITE HCMC 2024 welcomes international buyers from Brazil, the Czech Republic, Bangladesh, and Pakistan.
A variety of activities for the public, stimulating tourism demand
On the last day of the event, the Consumer fair for the public also recorded a two to three-fold increase in visitor numbers compared to the opening days. This is the first year that the tourism and trade sectors have collaborated to organize a major event at the same venue in order to create a ripple effect and directly promote products to businesses, tourists, and especially international buyers.
To stimulate shopping for travel, travel companies, restaurants, hotels, services, airlines, etc, have applied deep discounts of up to 50% to offer tourists the opportunity to purchase tours and book services at the most favorable prices.
Meanwhile, the International Gift and Souvenir Exhibition in Ho Chi Minh City in 2024 with 100 booths aims to closely connect shopping and tourism, transforming Ho Chi Minh City into an attractive destination for high-end shopping not only for local residents but also increasingly attracting tourists from both domestic and international markets.
Besides that, at the fair, there were 3 workshops on crochet, making scented candles, and making recycled luggage tags, which attracted more than 120 participants.
The ITE HCMC 2024 Organizing Committee also presented certificates of appreciation to the booths that actively participated and contributed to the overall success of the event. In particular, the organizing committee awarded the Best Booth Design prize to 18 units, including localities, the tourism department, travel companies, hotels, etc., that had large and well-invested booths.
The impressive results mentioned above by the ITE HCMC 2024 have demonstrated efforts to expand the international tourism market to Vietnam and make breakthroughs in promoting tourism nationwide in general and in Ho Chi Minh City in particular. At the same time, through this event, Ho Chi Minh City also affirms its role as a gateway for trade - a connecting point for tourism businesses in Vietnam, tourism businesses from countries along the Mekong River, and businesses in traditional markets, potential markets in the region and the world.
The event is implemented under the guidance of the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, organized by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism and the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism , in collaboration with the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Promotion Center, Vietnam CIS Company, and Le Bros Company.