Travellers will have the opportunity to buy tour packages, air tickets and related services with discounts of up to 40 percent at the ongoing International Travel Expo in Ho Chi Minh City, a local newspaper reported.

Many travel enterprises and airlines such as Saigontourist, BenThanh Tourist, Vietravel, Vietnam Airlines and VietJetAir will run promotion programmes there, the Saigon Times Daily quoted the city’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism as saying.

Ten buses will be mobilised to transfer visitors from the city’s downtown to the event which is the convergent centre for tourism-related firms and authorities from regional countries, said the organiser.

Especially, VietJetAir said it would lower air tickets of all international and domestic air routes to 9,000 VND at the event, exclusive of surcharges and fees.

Vietravel said that all tour packages offered at the exhibition would have prices slashed by 21 percent to 40 percent compared to those on normal days. For instance, the four-day Siem Reap-Phnom Penh tour will cost 1.99-2.59 million VND, the four-day Hanoi-Yen Tu-Ha Long-Ninh Binh-Trang An tour at 5.49 million VND, and the four-day Hue-La Vang-Thien Duong Cave-Ba Na-Hoi An-Da Nang tour at 4.59 million VND.

Meanwhile, tour packages to Japan, the Republic of Korea and other tours will be marked down by 2-4 million VND by Ben Thanh Tourist.

In addition, Free and Easy packages (including returned air tickets, two-way airport transfer and hotel accommodation) to domestic destinations such as Phu Quoc Island, Con Dao Island, Ca Mau, Da Nang, Tuy Hoa, and Chu Lai, and to international destinations such as Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia will range from 2 million VND to 10 million VND.

Saigontourist also cuts prices of many tours to domestic destinations. These include the five-day tour taking in Hung King Temple, Yen Bai, Mu Cang Chai, Sapa, and Hanoi at a discounted price of 8.35 million VND, and the five-day tour to Ha Giang, Dong Van, Ma Pi Leng, Hung King Temple and Hanoi at 7.99 million VND. Other international tour packages are also offered at a discount.

At the exhibition, apart from art performances and promotion programmes, local and foreign tourism promotion agencies will organise programmes to introduce destinations to customers in Ho Chi Minh City.

The first two days of the event, September 11-12, are for enterprises to find partners while the last day of September 13 will be opened to the public when people can buy discounted tours.

The 2014 International Travel Export in Ho Chi Minh City opening ceremony took place on September 10.

Ho Chi Minh City welcomed around 2.7 million tourists in January-August, up 10 percent over the same period last year. International visitors to the city account for half of the country’s total.-VNA