(VOVworld) – The Mekong Tourism Forum opened in Da Nang city on Thursday with the participation of representatives from national tourist agencies of the Greater Mekong Sub-region and Vietnamese as well as foreign travel agencies.

Ha Van Sieu, Deputy Director General of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism delivers an opening speech (baodulich.net.vn)

Themed “Better exploiting tourist potentials of the Greater Mekong Sub-region through new partnerships”, the forum is a venue for regional countries to broaden tourism cooperation through investment projects, promotional programs, and experience sharing.
Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, Le Khanh Hai, said that through the Greater Mekong Sub-region Vietnamese tourism can connect with other countries by air, road, and waterway. “Tourist agencies from countries in the Greater Mekong Sub-region should coordinate and create common mechanisms and policies to generate favorable conditions for traveling, encourage enterprises to invest in tourist infrastructure, and promote their tourist products in other countries. We expect to connect Vietnamese tourist sites and other places in the region to create attractive and diverse tourist products.”
 In recent years, the governments of 6 Greater Mekong Sub-region countries, including China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia, have boosted bilateral and multilateral tourist cooperation. Tourism in the Mekong region has increased 12% annually. The region welcomed 54 million tourists last year, accounting for 20% of tourists to the Asia-Pacific region, earning 61 billion USD.