Singapore Airlines
Colombo recently hosted their 10 Top Travel Agents to a Business cum
Familiarization trip to Ho Chi Minh City (formerly known as Saigon) in
Vietnam. In a bid to create a new and exciting destination to the Sri
Lankan traveler, the agents were taken to view first-hand what Ho Chi
Minh City had to offer. The business part of the trip was a trade
interaction session with Inbound Tour Operators in Ho Chi Minh City. The
Agents signed up as buyers for the two-day 5th International Travel Expo
(ITE) that was held at the Phu Tho Exhibition Center. The first day saw
the agent’s registering for the ITE and making appointments with
sellers. In the afternoon, a briefing session followed with many
Vietnamese sellers and members of the Vietnam Tourism Authorities making
presentations and highlighting the beauty and attractions of the
country. It was emphasized the not only was it easy to sell Vietnam but
buyers were asked to look into the possibility of selling "Three
Countries – One Destination" i.e. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. Later that
evening a grand gala welcome dinner for the Buyers and participants,
hosted by the Tourism Authority of Vietnam, was held.The following
day, the ITE was ceremoniously declared opened to the trade at the
Indoor stadium which had many colourful booths from many countries
(Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, India, Thailand, Malaysia and even the
"Singapore Flyer" was represented) and the agents spent the rest of the
day meeting with the sellers and getting an insight into what they could
offer the visitors. Furthermore the Agents were pleasantly surprised to
receive at the ITE, a copy of the ‘DULICH’, a Vietnamese Tourism Trade
Magazine with a large group photo of the entire Sri Lanka contingent
arriving at Saigon Airport. The meetings continued into the following
day as well. After a farewell lunch, the Familiarization part of the
tour began.
The Agents were taken on a half-day city tour to the now-unused
Reunification Palace (the place where the American war in Vietnam
officially ended), a factory that specializes in making paintings and
very delicate laquerware from mother-of-pearl shells and powdered egg
shells and a visit to the first museum of Traditional Vietnamese
Medicine, a traditional medical house.
A day of leisure followed where the agents indulged in hunting for
souvenirs in the local market and the following day they set off very
early for a 2-day "Mekong Delta" tour which took the form of a two and a
half hour drive to MyTho city (pronounced "mee tho"). At MyTho, the
Agents were taken on a motorized boat ride to villages located along the
Mekong River to observe the villagers going about their daily work,
visiting a coconut sweet factory, listened to traditional Vietnamese
music while sipping honey tea and munched on the wide variety of fresh
tropical fruit available in the locality and finally paddled in a canoe
through the mangroves to reach the location where the finals of the next
Miss World 2010 Contest was to be held. The hotel is still under
construction and is planned to open in August 2010 in time for the
pageant in October. After a typically Vietnamese lunch, the journey
resumed with a bus journey to the city of Can Tho (pronounced "can thur")
and after crossing the Mekong River yet again by ferry, the Agents
arrived at the luxurious Ninh Kieu 2 hotel, their stopover for the
night.
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