Competition to aid tourism startups in Mekong region

mekong-tourism
(From left) DNES deputy CEO Nguyen Tran, ADB MBI head Dominic Mellor, and MTCO executive director Jens Thraenhart

The newly-launched Mekong Initiative for Startup Tourism (MIST) will hold its first reverse hackathon and tourism startup competition in Danang early next year.

The contest invites local startups in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar to develop solutions for identified market opportunities and rewards winners by matching them with suitable investors.

Organised by the Mekong Tourism Coordinating Office (MTCO) and the Mekong Business Initiative (MBI), MIST first works with local tourism players to identify industry challenges and bottlenecks and solicits global solutions from experienced innovators.

It then facilitates exchanges between global providers and budding local entrepreneurs and structures competitions among startup teams.

The winning teams will attend a bootcamp and Demo Day at the 2017 Mekong Tourism Forum in Luang Prabang, while the best Vietnamese startups will also be invited to a Demo Day at the APEC Investment Summit in November 2017 in Danang.

“Innovation and technologies are transforming the world’s tourism sector, but the Mekong region has lagged behind. We are eager to see the region’s startups innovate and create new avenues for tourism growth,” said Dominic Mellor, head of MBI at the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Added Jens Thraenhart, executive director of MTCO: “The Greater Mekong Subregion is a magnet for tourism, but accelerating tourist volumes have also brought challenges to drive inclusive growth. The region will need to develop and innovate if it is to sustain today’s growth over the long term.”

MIST is co-organised by the Da Nang Business Incubator (DNES) in Vietnam.

Sponsored Post