The Vietnam International Travel Mart (VITM Hanoi 2023) will allow visitors to purchase quality tours at affordable prices and for businesses to seek partners, ultimately stimulating the recovery of the tourism industry.

A large number of visitors attend the VITM Hanoi 2023. Photo: Lai Tan/ The Hanoi Times

VITM Hanoi 2023 aims to bring together tourism-related businesses interested in creating products oriented towards green and digital economies to offer tourists more convenient tourism services.

Nguyen Thi Mai Anh, Deputy Director of the Hanoi Center for Investment, Trade and Tourism Promotion (HPA), affirmed the important role of the international tourism event, which runs until April 16 in Hanoi.

A large number of tourism enterprises from Hanoi and many other provinces, as well as foreign countries, participated in the event.

According to Pham Van Bay, deputy director of the Hanoi branch of Vietravel Tourism Company, people planning to travel between the end of April and the end of October will easily find package deals suitable for families and groups of friends. Vietravel announced a Summer promotion program with numerous freebies and discounts of up to 30%.

Through the program, he said, "We expect to serve 6,000 consumers and generate more than VND15 billion ($642,651) in revenue.

Nguyen Thi Van, deputy general director of Hanoitourist Corporation, said the company launched many promotional tours at this year's fair, with prices starting at VND8 million. They also offer package tours to exotic places such as Egypt and South Africa and a five-star luxury cruise to the Mediterranean.

This time, travel companies, airlines, and hotels have introduced 10,000 promotional tours and a significant number of discounted flights.

According to Nguyen Thi Mai Anh of the HPA, VITM Hanoi 2023 has provided a springboard for businesses to revive the inbound market by connecting supply and demand. As a result, Vietnam's tourism sector will grow sustainably and take the lead as an economic sector.

Delegates attend the opening ceremony of the event. Photos: TITC

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Minister Nguyen Van Hung highly appreciated the initiative of the Vietnam Tourism Association in choosing "Cultural Tourism" as the official theme of this year's fair.

"This is also a large-scale festival of the tourism industry, which brings practical opportunities for tourism enterprises, destinations, domestic and foreign localities to meet, gather information, and seek opportunities for cooperation development," he stressed.

He believes that "the domestic tourism market is still the foundation for both domestic and international tourism," a crucial principle for businesses to find new partners, new business models, and many contracts to be signed, giving impetus to the growth of Vietnam's tourism, as well as the tourism of partners and other countries participating in the series of activities organized at the fair.

The minister hopes that people's committees in provinces and cities will be able to connect with more travel companies to join hands so that "each locality has a unique tourism product" and build new tourism destinations, tours and routes.

The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism would work to remove bottlenecks related to mechanisms and policies while recommending relevant authorities and localities to quickly restore the tourism industry so that Vietnam's tourism becomes a safe, friendly, gentle, and hospitable destination for tourists.

Local visitors seek information about tours at Hanoitourist's booth. Photo: Hoai Nam/ The Hanoi Times

Vietnam's largest international travel fair attracted 600 exhibitors from 60 Vietnamese cities, provinces and 15 countries and territories.

The event, themed "Cultural Tourism", aims to encourage travel companies to develop new products related to cultural values and heritage, thereby contributing to developing the cultural industry and promoting Vietnamese culture to the world.

The fair is expected to increase travel links between domestic and foreign tourism enterprises through a series of activities, including a forum on "Development of Cultural Tourism in Vietnam", a seminar on "Reduction of Plastic Waste in Tourism", outbound promotion programs between Vietnam and Taiwan (China), Nepal and Indonesia, and inbound programs showcasing the Bac Giang - Moc Chau route, cultural tourism attractions in Ninh Binh, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Thai Nguyen provinces.