HÀ NỘI – The annual Vietnam Travel Mart 2023 will take place in downtown Hà Nội between April 13 and 16.

The event will gather 600 agencies from 50 provinces and cities throughout the country, and 15 other countries and territories with 450 stalls. There will be over 10,000 tours and tourism products at favourable prices at the site.

“We focus on Culture Tourism in this event,” said Vũ Thế Bình, chairman of Việt Nam Tourism Association. “Since the State resumed the National Culture Conference, we have realised that culture is crucial to the country. We had paid more attention to the economy than culture. Yet culture has been much cared for in the last two years.”

Bình further said that culture has always been an important part of various economic sectors, including tourism.

“That’s why this year's event will choose the theme Culture Tourism,” he said. “We have not done many things concerning culture, but this event is like a beginning for a trend to focus on developing culture, introducing unique features of tradition, history, and culture into tourism products and spread them to the world.”

There will be a forum on developing culture tourism during the event’s schedule.

“We have not understood thoroughly culture tourism, its factors, what are culture tourism products, how should we do PR on culture tourism, these will be main issues to discuss at the forum,” he said.

Bình further said that promoting culture tourism must be quite different to other kinds of tourism products.

“More importantly, culture tourism workers should have knowledge, experience,” he said. “How should we act? How should we swift from a traditional tourism model into a culture tourism model? Then how should enterprises and State agencies change?”

Bình said another focus at the VITM 2023 is rubbish.

“Plastic rubbish is a burning issue in sustainable tourism. Việt Nam is among the countries with the highest level of plastic rubbish discharged. We will have a workshop on the matter," Bình said.

According to Phạm Văn Thủy, Deputy General Director of the Việt Nam Tourism Administration, 50 provinces and cities of Việt Nam will join the event and bring along their special products and dishes.

“Our responsibilities include meeting the demands of guests from other countries,” he said when mentioning solutions to lure more international tourists. “We should create tourism products according to their demands, not our demands.”

This will be 10 years since the first VITM and 12 events have been organized. The event has become an important annual event of the tourism sector, where domestic and international enterprises exchange.

Besides offering information on destinations and tourism products, the event also hosts workshops and forums to enhance people’s knowledge on tourism, professional tourism skills and tourism development trends in the future.

The organizers forecast the event will draw thousands of buyers and some 2,500 enterprises.

Participating enterprises have prepared over 10,000 tours and tourism products at favourable prices to distribute at the event.

As many as 60,000 people are expected to join the four-day event. VNS