TOURIST FORUM

How to develop Ho Chi Minh City tourism? Why has a city which has been operating in tourism for 30 years attracted only two million visitors each year?

These and many other questions are waiting for letters of suggested solutions from every one The Ho Chi Minh Department of Tourism in cooperation with Sai Gon Giai Phong Newspaper opens the column “Tourist Forum” to receive ideas, suggestions from everyone: foreign tourists, businessmen and overseas Vietnamese alike.

 The forum will be opened twenty four by seven. You can send your opinions to Tourist Forum or by post to SGGP Newspaper- Travel Department, 423 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai Street, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City, Viet Nam.

Organizers will give away HCMC-Ha Noi flight tickets or offer free local tours to those with excellent ideas.

We would like to introduce an excerpt from a letter written by Ms Tran Thuy Linh – Assistant of Germany Consulate General.

Ho Chi Minh has some certain advantages including its youthful strength, dynamic economic performance and high integration capability. Compared with other cities in Viet Nam, the city owns unique features which usually leave a deep impression on visitors. It is a modern city with many special characteristics, which the city’s tourism sector must take into consideration to develop.

 However, we should notice that what makes foreigners to visit Viet Nam is not only the city of Ho Chi Minh. Thus, the marketing campaign for the city’s tourism industry will produce the desire effect only if it is expanded to the national scale.

 On the other hand, most prestigious local and foreign tourism companies could be our powerful internal forces since they are located in Ho Chi Minh City and they will, for their own sakes, participate in various common programs for the development of tourism industry if they are well supported by the city’s service.

Below are some of my suggestions for the development of the city’s tourism industry.

 1. Improve the Viet Nam’s representative role in international fairs.

Viet Nam’s stall in an international fair can not represent only a single tourism area or a group of travel agencies of the country, but the whole industry of Viet Nam. In order to achieve a breakthrough and create a new image of the Viet Nam’s tourism in these fairs, the country must promote a substantial investment as well as seek cooperation with a professional and prestigious tourism agency. Thus, I believe the task belongs to the Viet Nam National Administration for Tourism, not merely the Ho Chi Minh City’s Tourism Department.

2. Organize more promotion activities for tourism.

Promotion via events held in Viet Nam/Ho Chi Minh City: Each event or festival draws the interest of international visitors at various levels. Thus, an intensive study must be designed to find out the appropriate direction for development. Also, the industry sector can make references from experts’ consultancy besides closely cooperating with other relevant units and investing enough time to prepare an event. The fact is that most events held in Viet Nam have been organized in a rush, which left the participant agencies in confusion about how to introduce their tours.

 When hosting seminars, conferences or tourism fair, the city must encourage the participation of right foreign tourist agencies as well as use various channels to promote the events, among which are diplomatic services, overseas news agencies, domestic tourism enterprises, and relevant departments in major tourism markets.

More travel information should be given to tourists in Ho Chi Minh City and even in other areas of Viet Nam. Currently, the city is lacking necessary publications for advertising its tourism programs. Besides, it is a must for the city’s Tourism Department to focus on the improvement and upgrades of its website as well as establish an information center for tourists.

 Promotion via activities in overseas and major markets

This is one of the dispensable tasks of the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism and some other relevant departments.

 Match-making programs should be organized domestically as well as in foreign countries for domestic agencies to approach and study the tourism managing systems in foreign countries or to learn from the experience of their overseas counterparts.

 Also, the tourism sector should cooperate with various administration departments for tourism or giant partners in major markets. More branches and representative offices should be established to hold roadshows, in which tours and related information will be directly given to foreign customers by the local staffs. Besides, "Viet Nam Night" programs, in which presentations with slide-shows, Q & A section…about the Viet Nam’s potential tourism can be held in big foreign cities with the participation of their local agencies.

With the support of VNAirlines and local tourism agencies, the city can also offer the familiarization trips, shortly known as Fam Trips to foreign news agencies so that they can have a look at the country’s tourism industry and then introduce to their readers in their homelands.

 Viet Nam can invite some celebrities who come from the major foreign markets to visit the country, in combination with necessary public relations campaigns via newspapers or TV Ads to lure the customers in these markets. The city can cooperate with their local agencies to share the expenses for these programs.

Also, the tourism industry should improve the important role of representative tourism offices in foreign markets and suggest the Viet Nam National Administration for Tourism to open its branches in the promising markets.