HCMC seeks ways to stimulate tourism

VGP - To host 3.3 million turns of international visitors in 2009, up 7% against last year, Hồ Chí Minh City has designed numerous plans to stimulate its tourism sector.

April 23, 2009 3:32 PM GMT+7

Bến Thành market, one of the most favorite tourist sites for foreigners

The City will focus on tourism promotion activities in big markets like Japan, Australia, ASEAN members, France, West Europe and the Republic of Korea.

Now, Japan is the City's top source of visitors with an annual increase of 10% during the past five years.

Especially, the southern economic hub has just launched a program called "Hồ Chí Minh City’s 100 interesting things" in an effort to upgrade the quality of its tourist products and services.

Accordingly, the city will make the top-ten lists in different fields, with such titles as the hotel with Vietnamese impression, special Vietnamese restaurant, prestigious carrier, most favorite Vietnamese food, most favorite specialty, typical tourist site, most favorite shopping site, interesting tour itinerary, most favorite entertainment site and typical event.

Then, promotion packages will be designed for each market on the basis of allying travel companies, hotels, carriers and shops.

Data shows that around 54-60% of international tourists to Việt Nam during the past five years have dropped in the biggest city.

The city's tourism always grew 14.8-27% during 2004-2007, but went down to just 3.7% last year due to impacts of the global financial and economic crisis.

By Hải Minh