Ho Chi Minh City welcomed over 1.85 million foreign visitors in the first seven months of this year, representing a year-on-year rise of 10 percent despite impacts of the global economic downturn.

This success was attributable to an action plan on waterway tourism development, the popularity of the second stage of “Ho Chi Minh City – 100 interesting things” programme, and the promotion of standardized tourism programme with music shows, undertaken by the municipal tourism sector.

The sector has paid attention to bettering the quality of its human resources along with increasing bilateral cooperation with foreign counterparts and participation in activities of the Tourism Promotion Organisation for Asian-Pacific Cities.

It has worked with Vietnam Airlines and Vietnam Tourism Association to popularise Vietnam’s tourism in potential markets of the Republic of Korea, Japan, the US, Russia, Spain, India and ASEAN.

Since the beginning of this year, the country’s tourism sector had earned more than 10.6 trillion VND in revenues, up 29.6 percent./.