ITB Asia, now in its ninth year, is the leading trade exposition for Southeast Asia's outbound tourism industry. The yearly show – which spanned leisure, corporate and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) travel – allowed more than 850 travel buyers to meet with 760 exhibitors.

The region – made up of Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Brunei – has more than 633 million residents.

During 2015, 772,000 travelers from six of the Southeast Asian countries (other than Myanmar and Brunei) visited the United States. This was a 5-percent rise over the number of arrivals in 2014, and 13 percent more than in 2013.

U.S.-Bound Air Travel

Travel from Southeast Asia is set to grow even further with developments on the aviation front.

The Philippines offers 20 direct flights a week to various points in the United States.

• Garuda Indonesia, the national airline of Indonesia, plans to offer one-stop flights to the West Coast of the United States. (Indonesia, incidentally, is the world's fourth-most populated country.)
• Vietnam Airlines, as part of its strategic growth, plans to introduce new flights to the United States.
• Malaysia's Air Asia will soon offer one-stop service to the United States aboard its long-haul, budget carrier, Air Asia X.
• Singapore Airlines, on Oct. 23, begins a non-stop route to San Francisco. The airline also plans to resume non-stop service to New York and Los Angeles in the near future. (It had stopped direct flights to those two cities in 2013.)
• Other airlines, based beyond Southeast Asia, continue to offer one-stop service to the United States through Hong Kong, Taipei, Tokyo and Seoul.

Singapore's Changi Airport, the sixth-busiest international airport, is a major transportation hub that services Southeast Asia. It accommodated 55.4 million passengers from around the world in 2015, an airport record.

Brand USA Events At ITB Asia

Brand USA has teamed with U.S. embassies and the U.S. Commercial Service to arrange a series of events at ITB Asia, which afforded opportunities for U.S. exhibitors to meet with prominent Southeast Asian tour operators, other travel buyers and media representatives.

The events included:

• International Media Marketplace Asia – Representatives of more than 80 prominent media outlets in Australia, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand met exhibitors during this full-day event.
• Brand USA Pavilion Kick-Off Ceremony – Featured speakers included: S. Iswaran, Singapore's minister for trade and industry, and Stephanie Syptak-Ramnath, Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Singapore.
• Window to ASEAN - Market Briefing – Southeast Asian offices of U.S. Commercial Service, Brand USA and U.S. delegates to ITB Asia share perspectives on best ways to promote U.S. tourism in the ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) region.
• Brand USA Southeast Asia Travel Exchange and Reception– U.S. delegates to ITB Asia networked with 100 leading Southeast Asian wholesalers, tour operators and online travel agencies.

Brand USA also distributed its U.S. Travel Tip Kits to travel buyers. The kits provided an overview of the United States through regional maps and information on gateway cities and nearby destinations beyond the gateways. They also included 20 suggested regional itineraries, which begin in key cities and expand outward to easy-access side-trips – all within a five-hour radius of each city.

Brand USA partners at ITB Asia

U.S. travel-industry exhibitors who participated in the Brand USA Pavilion at ITB Asia included:

Alamo Rent a Car, Caesars Entertainment, Citadel Outlets, Cirque du Soleil, Grand Canyon West, Grand Canyon Helicopters & Grand Canyon Scenic Airlines, Graceland Wedding Chapel, Greater Fort Lauderdale Convention & Visitors Bureau, Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, Guam Visitors Bureau, Hawaii Tourism Southeast Asia, Kualoa Ranch Hawaii Inc., Las Vegas Conventions & Visitors Authority, Los Angeles Tourism & Convention Board and Los Angeles World Airports, Maverick Helicopters & Airlines, Nevada Division of Tourism, New York Hilton Midtown, NYC & Company, Residence Inn by Marriott World Trade Hotel, South Beach Group Hotels,  Team America Receptive Tour Operator, The Hertz Corporation, Tour America LLC, Tropicana Las Vegas, Universal Orlando Resort, Universal Studios Hollywood, Visit Florida, Wellington Hotel and 7M Tours.

Representation firm in region

Brand USA has had a marketing presence in Southeast Asia since 2013, through local representation by an Asian tourism-marketing agency, BRANDSTORY Inc. The agency, which has a regional office in Singapore, specializes in multi-channel marketing programs. BRANDSTORY Inc also represents Brand USA through its regional offices in Taiwan and Hong Kong.

About Brand USA

Brand USA, the destination marketing organization for the United States, was established by the Travel Promotion Act as the nation's first public-private partnership to promote the United States as a premier travel destination and to communicate U.S. entry/exit policies and procedures to worldwide travelers. The organization's mission is to increase international visitation to the USA in order to fuel the U.S. economy and enhance the image of the United States worldwide. Formed as the Corporation for Travel Promotion in 2010, the public-private entity began operations in May 2011 and does business as Brand USA.

According to studies by Oxford Economics, over the past three years Brand USA's marketing initiatives helped welcome more than 3 million incremental visitors to the USA, benefiting the U.S. economy with nearly $21 billion in total economic impact, which has supported, on average, 50,000 incremental jobs a year.

For industry or partner information about Brand USA, visit BrandUSA.com. For information about exceptional and unexpected travel experiences in the United States, please visit Brand USA's consumer website VisitTheUSA.com.