Enterprises and the tourism promotionagencies in the city will attend the annual show in Singapore from April8-13 to establish relations with partners as well as popularise thecity’s river tourism, The Saigon Times Daily quoted Deputy Director ofthe Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Promotion Centre Nguyen Bao Anh as saying.
“The city is improving the product and thus needs to promote it both overseas and locally,” he reportedly said.
Thecity has almost finished handing over the site of Bach Dang Wharf inDistrict 1 to Saigontourist Holding Company to make it a terminal fortourist boats. It has also released a list of wharfs, piers and stationsin districts 1, 8, 9, Cu Chi and Can Gio to call for investment.
Beforeinfrastructure facilities and services for the new product arecompleted, river tours departing from Bach Dang Wharf to Binh Quoi,District 8 and Long An have been offered.
According to Anh,together with the show in Singapore, Ho Chi Minh City is preparing for atourism promotion roadshow to be organised in Japan in April. This timethe city will not promote tourism individually but with Myanmar, Laos,Thailand and Cambodia.
This year the municipal Department ofCulture, Sports and Tourism will coordinate with Japanese partners tohold a tourism forum which will have the participation of around 40Japanese enterprises who are interested in the Vietnamese market.
Thenumber of Japanese tourists coming to the city was over 345,000 lastyear, up 10 percent, and is expected to rise to half a million in 2015.
In2013, foreign arrivals to the city is estimated at 4.1 million,increasing 8.1 percent over 2012 and reaching 100.2 percent of the settarget.
This year, the city’s tourism sector targets 4.4 millionforeign visitors, a year-on-year increase of 7 percent and equivalentto 55 percent of the country’s total.
It is expected to rake in94 trillion VND (4.4 billion USD), equivalent to 43 percent of thecountry’s total turnover and 15 percent higher than last year.-VNA