Saigon Exhibition & Fair Center to Be Built for MICE Tourism

Construction of the Saigon Exhibition and Fair Center, a joint venture of Saigontourist and the Phu My Hung Corporation, began in Ho Chi Minh City’s district 7 on April 20, aiming to speed development of MICE tourism.

The center, covering more than 100,000 square meters of area “A” in the Phu My Hung urban zone, will cost an estimated US$200 million.

 

The center will feature four 10,000 square-meter exhibition halls, a 20,000 square-meter outdoor display area, a 35-storey office building, a 2,000-seat international conference center, and one four-star hotel and one five-star hotel with a combined total of some 1,000 rooms.

 

The first phase of the project, worth more than US$30 million, will be completed by October 2008.

 

The center is in a perfect location for MICE (Meeting, Incentive, Conference and Exhibition) visitors, said Mr. Nguyen Huu Tho, Director General of Saigontourist and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Sai Gon Exhibition and Fair Center.

MICE tourism is now a new profitable business for Vietnam’s tourism sector, manifested by the increasing number of MICE tourists to the country in recent times.

Figures released by the General Statistics Office (GSO) showed that among 1.85 million foreign tourists traveling to Vietnam in the first six months of 2006, as many as 278,000 visitors traveled in combination with attending seminars or conferences, an increase of 26.3 per cent over the same period last year.

At present, good venues for MICE tourism include Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, the central coastal Nha Trang city and the central region. (Liberated Saigon Online)

 

Saigon Amara Hotel annually organises a festival for secretaries in every April. Apart from expressing the gratitude of the hotel to secretaries working for companies with close relationship with the hotel, secretaries had chances to exchange and share experience with others and to relax after tense working days.

 

This year, the meeting, themed THAITANIC, introduced Thai special dishes to secretaries based on the love story of Jack and Rose on the Titanic.