Winning startups presenting at MIST @ITB Asia

MIST Workshop - Bangkok

The last two weeks were very busy ones for everyone at Mekong Tourism as well as partners to organize the MIST Forum 2019 as well as prepare our visit to WiT and ITB Asia in Singapore.

The MIST Workshop and Forum 2019 were great successes, being fully booked with 160 online reservations. This year's MIST finalists in the two categories Travel Technology and Social Impact Ventures learned from industry experts at the MIST Workshop on 8 October and showcased their solutions to the judges and the public on 9 October at Quaint Bangkok. The judges chose GolfDigg from Thailand as the winner of the Travel Technology ventures with LOCA from Lao PDR as a runner up. Noir Spa from Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam, was chosen as winner of the Social Impact ventures with the Laos Buffalo Dairy from Luang Prabang, Lao PDR, as a runner up. Please join me to congratulate all finalists and winners. More details about the event on mist.asia.

This year, the winners of the Travel Technology category were invited to join us at ITB Asia in Singapore, where they will present together with other industry experts at the MIST Forum @ITB Asia to which I would like to personally invite you on 18 October, at 12:30 pm.

During the MIST Forum, MTCO launched the first destination Video for the Mekong Region. The video comprises exclusively of videos submitted to the #MekongMinis campaign and #MekongMoments portal and showcases under the tagline "One River - Six Countries - Unlimited Experiences" the large variety of experiences possible in the region.

I would like to remind everyone that our Mekong Minis campaign will be ending on 15 November and that any video with #MekongMinis and #[country] can participate and has a chance to win one of the experiential prizes valued at over $20,000. I would like to thank all the sponsors and partners for their support in the campaign. In line with this, I would also like to ask you to mark your diaries on 16 January 2020 for the Mekong Mini Movie Festival, which will incorporate the 2nd Asia Visual Storytelling Forum and take place in Bangkok.

With this, I wish you all a successful week and look forward to meeting many of you at ITB in Singapore.

Kind regards,
Jens Thraenhart
Executive Director
Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office (MTCO)