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.
After a very early wakeup call the next day, the Agents left by boat again to visit the Cai Rang Floating Market to watch the trading activity going on among hoards of small boats dexterously weaving their way among the many larger boats in the water after which the Agents, very reluctantly, had to leave for the Airport to catch the flight home.
General Manager SIA Sri Lanka, Chia Chow Hwee said, “I hope that the first-hand insight into Vietnam and specifically Hi Chi Minh, gained by the participating agents, will help them to sell the destination better to their clients. Singapore Airlines with up to 25 flights a week to Vietnam covering Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi is well placed to support increased trade and tourism links between Sri Lanka and Vietnam.”
The agents agreed that they all enjoyed the tour and thanked SIA for organizing the Familiarization trip despite it being a very bad year for world tourism as the trip had opened many selling opportunities for them.
Source:dailymirror.lk
