HCM City (VNA) - Based on its 2017 success, Ho ChiMinh City aims to attract between seven and eight million internationalvisitors and a whopping 29 million domestic visitors in 2018.

Tran Vinh Tuyen, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’sCommittee, told the Vietnam News Agency (VNA) earlier this month that reachingthis goal would be difficult, so the city must work to make its tourism sectormore attractive.

Phan Xuan Anh, representative of HCM City-based cruise-lineprovider Tan Hong Co Ltd, told the HCM City Federation of Labour’s onlineportal that the region’s tourism prospects were looking positive as the numberof tourists increased, but the city still needed to determine what its keyattractions were.

He also argued that since more than 6.3 million internationalvisitors to HCM City in 2017 were Chinese and Korean, there should be specialtravel services and planning to cater to this influx of guests to generateadditional revenue, while maintaining a stable number of Western travellers.

Recently, he said, the HCM City Department of Tourismidentified and developed a few featured tourism products with growth potential,such as street food, entertainment, folk arts and recreational health care.

HCM City would also focus on creating favourable investmentand business mechanisms for hosting meetings, conventions and events, said Tuyen.

In order to meet the target this year, the city would have toinvest in infrastructure, such as public transport, international terminals andluxurious accommodation.

Tuyen said it was necessary to expand tourism activities toeach household, so that every person living in and outside the city couldparticipate in tourism development.

For example, the behaviour and attitude of residents couldalso become tourism oriented, which would play an important role in creating afriendly and safe image of the city and Vietnam as a whole.

"The city must have a long-term, development strategyfor its tourism,” said Vo Anh Tai, Deputy General Director of SaigontouristTravel Service Co.

Anh Tai said that although HCM City had a master plan fortourism development until 2030, due to a limited budget, the tourism departmentwas still choosing consultative groups and reviewing overall strategy.

Nonetheless, Tuyen said he expected the department wouldfinish a basic business and development plan by the Lunar New Year.

According to Xuan Anh, a major weakness in the city’s tourismindustry, as assessed by tour-organising companies, was the lack of adevelopment strategy.

Nguyen Quoc Ky, General Director of Vietravel, praised thecity’s tourism target, but complained that key attractions had not yet beenpin-pointed.

He argued that without carefully determined key products, itwas difficult to market the city.

According to Ky, the tourism industry should change itsapproach to customers from passive to active. Recently, many new routes fromthe city to the countryside had been opened, but not directly marketed totravellers.

Ky said that it was necessary to set up supporting mechanismsand policies so that tour operators would find it easier to attract visitors.

Of course, he said he understood this would require coordinationbetween local government, travel companies, international and domesticairlines, and other service providers.

According to a 2017 report on National TourismCompetitiveness Index by the World Economic Forum, the overall competitivenessranking for Vietnam’s tourism industry is 67 out of 136.-VNA