Ho Chi Minh City to mark 10th anniv of flagship travel expo on Sept 11 Foreign visitors are pictured at a travel expo in Ho Chi Minh City. Tuoi Tre The International Travel Expo – Ho Chi Minh City (ITE HCMC) will celebrate its ten-year anniversary with the 2014 edition slated to kick off next month, the organizers announced Friday. The three-day event runs from September 11 to 13 at the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center, based in Ho Chi Minh City’s District 7. The Vietnam’s key annual international tourism event is expected to attract international travel agents from 30 nations and territories, the organizers, the Vietnam National Tourism Administration and the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said at the Friday media meeting. Businesses from Cambodia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Netherlands and the UK will showcase their products and highlight their brands at the event which is hoped to woo more than 20,000 visitors from in and out the country. Vietnamese tour organizers will also present the most interesting products of the 28 tourism provinces and cities countrywide at the event. Boasting the “Mekong’s largest travel event, the ITE says it will give participants “the key to enter the largest and most established travel event in Vietnam and the Mekong.” The exhibition this year holds a slogan reading “One Decade. One Mekong. One World,” and aims at “encouraging competitiveness and promotes Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam as a single attractive tourism destination,” Vietnamese Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism Hoang Tuan Anh said in statement. “ITE HCMC has also become a recognized platform for destinations and organizations from the Asia Pacific region and beyond to promote tourism and business exchange for their respective countries,” he said in a welcome message posted on the event’s website. Over the last decade, ITE HCMC has successfully established the leisure travel industry in both inbound and outbound tourism, and to mark its 10th anniversary, the event is expanding and introducing five new travel segments, according to the minister. These include Luxury Travel, Education Tourism, Medical Tourism, MICE and Spa & Wellness. “We strongly believe that these are the up and coming segments that will flourish and prosper,” he said. ITE HCMC 2013 received 18,438 visitors during the course of three days, a 13 percent increase compared to the previous edition, according to the organizers. Tuoi tre news