(TITC) – On 20 July 2016, the Seminar on promoting Viet Nam – Gifu tourism took place in Gifu, Japan.
The event was organized by Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) in collaboration with Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV) and Gifu Prefecture in order to boost tourism development cooperation between the two sides.
The seminar was presided by Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan – Director General of VNAT. At the seminar, representatives of cities of Takayama, Gujo, Seki; Shirakawa-go Village – World Heritage Site and JTB tourism enterprise shared experiences in tourism development in relation to the preservation of cultural heritage and traditional craft villages.
In his speech, Director General Nguyen Van Tuan emphasized that these experiences would be very useful for Vietnamese localities in tourism development. He proposed Gifu and Vietnamese localities to strengthen cooperation to boost tourists exchange between the two sides. In 2015, the total number of Vietnamese tourists to Japan reached 185,000 arrivals, of which about 2,500 visited Gifu.
Located in the central region of Japan, with the population of 2.5 million, Gifu is famous for local specialities of Hida beef, Ayu fish and traditional sword forging. Gifu is endowed with such popular destinations as Gujo City, ancient village of Shirakawa-go, Takayama City… In recent years, thanks to the support of BIDV, Gifu Prefectural Government has been pushing efforts to seek opportunities for cooperation between Gifu and Vietnamese localities.
At the seminar, representatives of the Vietnamese delegation introduced potentials and products of Viet Nam tourism, preferential policies for investment and also raised the issues to be resolved to improve the efficiency of cooperation and tourism promotion between the two sides.
The Vietnamese delegates also attended B2B meeting with 32 tour operators, hotels and tourist destinations of Gifu Prefecture to promote business cooperation and tourism development.
In 2015, Viet Nam welcomed 671,000 Japanese tourist arrivals, increase 3.6% over 2014. In six months of 2016, the number of Japanese tourists to Viet Nam reached 356,000 arrivals, up 12.4% over the same period last year. 185,000 Vietnamese tourist arrivals traveled to Japan in 2015, increasing 49% over 2014.
Hong Nhung