The meeting had the participation of VNAT’s General Director, Mr. Nguyen Van Tuan; leaders of VNAT’s departments; Bangladesh Ambassador to Viet Nam, Mr. Shahab Ullah; representatives of Bangladesh’s Ministry of Civil Aviation and Tourism; Bangladesh’s Travel Association and travel agencies.

According to representative of Bangladesh delegation, the country has an area of approximately 144,000 km2 and population of more than 160 million, especially travel demand of Bangladesh citizens has been raising due to their increasing income. He appreciated Viet Nam tourism potential with various world heritage recognized by UNESCO. Viet Nam is also known as a peaceful and beautiful country.

He proposed that Viet Nam should open direct flights to Bangladesh or connect flights to Bangladesh via Singapore, Malaysia and simplify visa procedures to attract more Bangladesh tourists in particular and international tourists in general.

Speaking at the meeting, General Director Nguyen Van Tuan informed that Viet Nam welcomed 7.87 million international arrivals, and served about 38.5 million domestic trippers in 2014 (increasing by 4% and 10% over 2013, respectively). Viet Nam currently has offered over 15,000 tourist accommodations with around 365,000 rooms.

Bangladesh has been identified as a potential tourism market in the Viet Nam tourism development strategy. It is necessary for the two countries to enhance the cooperation in tourism such as exchanging famtrip delegations to survey tourism potential; coordinating to promote destinations and tourism products; boosting to open Viet Nam – Bangladesh flight routes as soon as possible.

Thanh Tam