A festival at the Suoi Tien theme park in HCM City (Photo: VNA) New Delhi (VNA) – Vietnam’s southern largesteconomic hub of Ho Chi Minh City introduced its tourism potential and productsto Indian visitors at workshop in New Delhi on February 24.
The function attracted many Vietnamese travelcompanies such as Saigontourist, Transviet, Indochina Travel, Vietmark,Victoria Tour and Emega, along with a number of Indian tour operators and mediaoutlets.
Tran Quang Tuyen, an envoy of the Vietnamese Embassyin India, said Vietnam attracted 10 million foreign tourists in 2016, ayear-on-year increase of 26 percent.
He partly attributed the growth to the fact thatVietnam is home to many UNESCO-recognised world heritage sites and the countryboasts a diverse culture, beautiful beaches, imposing mountains, and hospitablepeople.
Vietnam is able to satisfy all tourists who comehere to enjoy leisure, go shopping, explore local cuisine, organise weddings, orparticipate in business workshops, he said, adding that Indian travelers canvisit well-preserved historical relic sites or Indian-style restaurants in manybig cities of Vietnam.
The number of Indian tourists to Vietnam surgedfrom 16,000 in 2010 to about 90,000 in 2016 and HCM City is one of the mostattractive destinations for Indian holidaymakers as more than 51,500 Indianstoured the southern city last year, Tuyen noted.
However, Indian visitors to Vietnam accounts foronly 2-3 percent of the total number of Indian tourists to ASEAN countries andis much lower than the 20 million Indians going on overseas holidays each year,he added.
At the workshop, travel firms from HCM Cityintroduced their best tourism products and fielded questions raised byparticipants.
Nguyen Tri Vien, Chief of the Office of the HCMCity Tourism Department, said India is a potential market and the city’senterprises are working to provide new and interesting tourism services toattract more Indian visitors.
Earlier, the HCM City delegation also attendedthe Outbound Travel Mart held in Mumbai city, where it introduced new tourismproducts and investment attraction policies of HCM City and Vietnam as well.-VNA
VNA
