Vietnam’s first international tourism promotion office will be opened in neighboring Laos as part of the solutions to promote Vietnamese tourism, Nguyen Trung Khanh, head of the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism, said at a seminar in Ho Chi Minh City on Tuesday.

At the seminar themed 'Solutions to Tourism Breakthroughs,' held by Nguoi Lao Dong (Laborer) newspaper, Khanh said that Vietnam set an ambitious target to welcome 17-18 million international travelers and 110 million domestic tourist arrivals this year.

To reach the target, the authority has completed the tourism plan for 2025-30 with a vision to 2045.

The authority determined that it is necessary to change tourism promotion methods for different segments, such as community, healthcare, MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions), and railway tourism.

A workable solution is to establish tourism promotion offices abroad, Khanh noted.

The office in Laos will help access tourists from Thailand and Cambodia.

Nguyen Quoc Ky, chairman of Vietravel Holdings, a local travel firm, said pending the establishment of Vietnam’s tourism promotion offices overseas, Vietnamese travel companies can take advantage of existing representative offices of enterprises in other countries.

Vietravel Holdings has set up its office in India, besides those in Australia, the U.S., and France.

At the seminar, Nguyen Thi Hoai An, deputy director of the Da Nang Department of Tourism, revealed that the coastal city will welcome world-renowned football players from Brazil, including Kaka, Lúcio, and Ronaldo, for a fan-meeting event in April.

The city welcomed American billionaire Bill Gates several days earlier.

Da Nang's popularity among wealthy travelers and celebrities boosts its image and validates the effectiveness of its tourism promotion programs in recent years.

Besides super-rich guests, the city has provided services for the wedding celebrations of Indian billionaires and other international couples, An said.

Vietnam welcomed more than three million international tourists in the first two months of this year, surging 68.7 percent year on year and equal to 98.5 percent of the figure in the same period in 2019, when COVID-19 had yet to hit the country, according to the General Statistics Office.

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