About 15 tourism, hotel, airline and entertainment operators from Thailand are attending the International Travel Expo in Ho Chi Minh City until tomorrow. They expect to gain more business from the emerging market of Vietnam as well as from other states around Thailand.
Weerawat Swasdibutra, general manager for Vietnam at Thai Airways International, said yesterday that the airline planned to operate direct flights from Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport to Danang in central Vietnam by January.
Its sister airline, Thai Smile, will fly daily on behalf of the flag carrier.
THAI operates two daily flights from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City and two daily flights to Hanoi.
Ladawan Pidokunkajorn, domestic manager of Phuket Sealand, the operator of an adventure camp and rafting trips in Phuket, said the company joined the travel expo in Ho Chi Minh City for the first time as it wanted to promote Phuket to the Vietnamese market.
The company will have to negotiate with more than 30 operators in Vietnam during the three-day event.
“Vietnam tourists already know about Bangkok and Pattaya but are still not familiar with Phuket.
“We expect to get more business from Vietnam because more airlines including Thai VietJet plan to operate direct flights from Vietnam to Phuket,” she said.
For the Vietnamese market, it is offering a special Bt4,000 package for three days and two nights excluding the air ticket.
Pawin Pettrakul, public relations and production manager for Alcazar Pattaya, said the transgender show would participate in about 20 overseas travel-trade events per year including the region’s tourism highlight, ITB Asia in Singapore, set to take place next month.
The company is not focusing on sales from trade shows, but rather on maintaining its awareness in international markets, as the show is already popular in Thailand.
“Alcazar receives more than a million customers per year. More than 95 per cent are foreigners. Our key markets in Asia are Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam,” he said.
The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism said 289 international operators and agencies involved in the travel business from 30 countries are participating in this year’s expo.
VNAT said the event was set to strengthen tourism in five countries in the Mekong Subregion – Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Myanmar.
Vietnam alone welcomed 7.9 million tourists and served 57 million domestic trips last year.
The tourism industry contributes 6.6 per cent of gross domestic product.
In the first eight months of this year, tourist arrivals surged 25 per cent to 6.5 million from the same period last year.
From 2011-15, average growth of international tourists ran at 7.4 per cent per year.