Travel fair to focus Việt Nam’s ‘new normal’ tourism situation

HÀ NỘI — The annual Việt Nam International Travel Mart (VITM) 2022 will be held in downtown Hà Nội between March 31 and April 3. 

This year, as the borders have reopened to international tourism, the theme of the fair is: “New Normal –  New Chance for Việt Nam’s Tourism”. 

The event is a continuation of a series of events hosted by the Việt Nam Tourism Association, like the National Travel Forum on January 21; the National Domestic Travel Tourism Forum on April 15, 2021; and the Sustainable Recovery for Việt Nam’s Tourism Forum on November 30, 2021.

According to Vũ Thế Bình, deputy chairman of the association, the event will encourage enterprises and organisations to introduce initiatives for tourism management business, to ensure the safety of people’s health, protect the environment and a perform a digital transition, so that tourism sector can recover its growth rate in the shortest time possible.

Visitors take photos at the booth of Ninh Bình Province at the VITM 2020. —VnExpress News Photo Lê Hương

“There are many problems now after the pandemic, such as how to recover the qualified human resources lost over the past two years,” he said. “We are stepping into a new period. This event expresses the strong will of the entire sector. Enterprises will show their determination through workshops to find out solutions for the new normal situation.”

Bình said the fair will feature 320 stalls from enterprises, tourism management and promotion agencies from 52 provinces and cities around the country. So far Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Turkey and Taiwan Island have confirmed their attendance;

Over 500 enterprises dealing with hotels, resorts, travel agencies, tourism centres, airlines and other services have registered for the event.

The event is expected to receive some 40,000 guests and 2,500 tourism enterprises, working with partners and customers.

It is jointly organised by the Viet Nam National Tourism Administration and the Tourism Development Support Fund.

“Our fund will assist the VITM in three groups of activities including the Việt Nam Tourism Forum, advertising Vietnamese images, and some communication tasks at the fair,” said Lê Tuấn Anh, director of the fund.

Some 10,000 promotion tours, 100,000 air tickets at low prices; over 1,000 gifts will be available at the event.

Bình said since 2013, the event has been organised annually as one of the most important events of the tourism sector.

Last year, the event was cancelled due to the pandemic, after being postponed four times. The association intends to host another VITM in the central city of Đà Nẵng in August.

“We will gradually host the VITM in three regions each year with the same style of promoting inbound and outbound tours,” he said. — VnExpress News