Vietnam report
On the MICE trail in Ho Chi Minh City
VIETNAM IS STEPPING UP ITS MICE MARKETING AS SIMON GEORGE DISCOVERED AT THE 19TH ITE HCMC SHOW. IT IS A TREND ONLY LIKELY TO BE ENHANCED BY GOVERNMENT BUY-IN AND KEY INFRASTRUCTURE CATALYSTS
T he International Travel
Expo Ho Chi Minh City is getting bigger and bigger, participation figures suggest, testament to the government investment in tourism and Vietnam’ s growing appeal as a MICE destination. The 19th iteration of the event( ITE HCMC 2025) saw 520 exhibitors, more than 250 international buyers from over 30 countries, representatives from 28 provinces across Vietnam and 28,000 trade visitors descend on the Saigon Exhibition and Convention Center( SECC) in Ho Chi Minh City, 4-6 September 2025, with 12,600 B2B appointments organised. Two other events, Export Forum 2025 and Connecting International Goods Supply Chains, ran concurrently with the ITE HCMC show.
Aimed at developing MICE tourism and trade, Vietnam’ s premier annual travel event was endorsed by Ho Chi Minh City People’ s Committee and the Ministry of Culture, and sports and tourism minister Mr Nguyen Van Hung, who, in an opening speech outlined the objective to make Ho Chi Minh City( and the Mekong delta) a leading regional tourist hub. He set out three key government initiatives to facilitate the process:( i) accelerate the tourism industry’ s digital and green transition;( ii) expand sustainable tourism and( iii) facilitate the visa regime.
Infrastructure game-changer A key catalyst nearing completion set to significantly increase both the city’ s and the country’ s MICE potential is Ho Chi Minh City’ s new airport,
Top right: Our man in
Ho Chi Minh City, Simon George
Middle right: Dressed for the event part at ITE HCMC
Bottom right: War museum pieces are major exhibits in Vietnam
Left: Ms. Nguyen Thi Anh Hoa, director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism
Long Thanh International Airport. Costing $ 12.8bn and scheduled to begin commercial flights next year, the airport will alleviate the congestion issues that can plague Tan Son Nhat International and play a key role in fulfilling the government’ s tourism aims.
The government is also planning to build a new high-speed rail link linking the capital Hanoi in the north and Ho Chi Minh City in the south, although completion is at least five years off.
MICE as economic motor ITE HCMC 2025 is clearly a conduit for economic growth. Vietnam’ s GDP is forecast to grow from 8.3 % currently to
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