Attending the meeting were Mr. Nguyen Trung Khanh, Chairman of Viet Nam National Authority of Tourism (VNAT) and MOCST and VNAT’s officials.

Overview of the meeting (Photo: TITC)

Speaking at the meeting, MOCST’s Deputy Minister Ho An Phong highly appreciated the cooperation and support of WTTC for Viet Nam tourism development recently. In 2024, Viet Nam diversified its source markets and achieved positive outcomes: receiving 17.6 million international arrivals, up 40% compared to 2023. Viet Nam has set the goal to welcome 22-23 million international arrivals in 2025.

In 2024, Viet Nam joined the WTTC's annual Global Summit in Australia. This was a vital event to share information on tourism development and catch up with the latest trends in the industry; provided a platform for cooperation and investment between national tourism management agencies, destinations and the international tourism business community. MOCST’s Deputy Minister Ho An Phong added, Viet Nam will consider the participation of the 25th WTTC Global Summit 2025 in Rome, Italy.

He hopes that WTTC will continue its support in launching new initiatives for the development of tourism industry in the region and Viet Nam in particular; organizing activities to raise awareness and train human resources; fostering tourism promotion and other cooperation activities to make Viet Nam tourism an attractive destination on the world map.

VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh suggesting WTTC to strengthen cooperation with national tourism agencies (Photo: TITC)

Besides sharing information to navigate the sustainable development, Viet Nam is ready to participate in common activities such as tourism forums or multilateral and bilateral cooperation framework to bring Vietnamese tourism and culture to the world.

VNAT’s Chairman Nguyen Trung Khanh suggested WTTC to strengthen the cooperation with national tourism agencies, so that both sides would regularly share and update information and data on Viet Nam's tourism industry, thereby obtaining accurate assessments of the development index of Viet Nam tourism.

Photo: TITC

According to Ms. Liz Ortiguera, Sr. Advisor, MD of Asia-Pacific and Interim Memberships/Commercial SVP, World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC), destinations in Asia including Viet Nam are currently developing in a positive direction. WTTC will share reports on issues that Viet Nam is interested in, such as the socio-economic impact of tourism, community tourism, artificial intelligence AI, etc.

Photo: TITC

Regarding training of tourism human resources, Ms. Liz Ortiguera said that WTTC has platforms for small and medium enterprises, through which it can provide data for human resource development in Viet Nam. In addition, WTTC's new research on Climate, Oceans and Net Zero is very useful in assessing the sustainability of destinations, supporting destinations to develop a roadmap for climate change adaptation and net zero emissions. WTTC will develop a roadmap for Net Zero tourism development and guidance documents for the implementation.

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