La Quoc Khanh, deputy head of the committee, said that an invitation has been extended to Myanmar, calling this nation to join this year’s event rather than only three Indochina countries. Later, Yunnan of China will also be asked to participate in following events to make it a professional travel expo of the sub-region in the near future, he said.

“We want to make a new theme to promote the common image of the four countries in 2011 once a common voice is reached among the four tourism ministries of Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar in this travel expo,” he said in a meeting to promote the event in HCMC last Friday.

The sixth annual event will take place from this Thursday to Saturday at the Saigon Exhibition & Convention Center in Phu My Hung, District 7.

As of last Friday, 170 local and foreign exhibitors have registered to join the expo. More than 150 foreign buyers will also join the event compared to 100 buyers last year.

Alongside the exhibition will be the ASEAN Tourism Investment Forum, Tourism Ministers Meeting, Tourism Alliance Awards and the ITE HCMC 2010 Golf Tournament. Familiarization trips will be organized for foreign guests to explore tourist attractions and services.

At the event in 2007, tourism ministers of Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia inked a joint declaration on tourism cooperation to make the three countries a common destination for international tourists.

Khanh said the tourism sector has not been doing well some joint activities like developing human resources and drawing a common tourist map. However, via the cooperation, the travel expo has been better known worldwide, and at the same time, the three Indochina countries’ tourism image has also been better promoted.

The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism and the HCMC Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism are collaborating with IIR Exhibitions Pte Ltd and VINEXAD to organize the international travel expo.

Khanh said that the organizing committee in this year offers incentives to small and medium-scale companies who want to join the event. “Such companies can enjoy a discount of up to two-thirds compared to big-scale companies,” he said.