20 years ago, the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Festival was first organised to create opportunities for businesses to introduce tourism products and services to city residents, domestic and foreign tourists.

Aiming for sustainable development, implementing the Government's commitment to reduce emissions to net zero by 2050 and encouraging the formation of products, services, the trend of environmentally friendly green consumption and technology application to bring unique experiences and emotions to visitors and at the same time mark 20 years and open a new path in the development journey; This year's City Tourism Festival is held from 4th to 7th April at 23/9 Park with the theme "20 years of lively journey"

Mr. Vo Van Hoan, Vice Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee speaking at the Opening Ceremony (Photo: TITC)

Giving the opening remarks, Mr. Vo Van Hoan, Vice Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee highlighted Ho Chi Minh City's advantages as a special urban area with potential in infrastructure, science and technology, trade and services, and high-quality human resources, is the gateway for international traffic, trade exchanges, and tourism services with countries in the region and the world.

As a major tourism centre of the country, the City has actively implemented plans and action programmes to accelerate tourism development after the Covid-19 pandemic.

In 2023, City tourism welcomed 5 million international visitor arrivals and 35 million domestic tourist trips. In the first quarter of 2024, the City welcomed 1.38 million international visitor arrivals, an increase of 32% over the same period in 2023; attracted more than 8 million domestic tourist trips, an increase of 6.6%; Total tourist receipts reached VND 44.7 trillion, an increase of 23.8%.  These results demonstrate that the city's tourism is recovering and growing well, continuing to be the nucleus connecting and promoting tourism development in the Southeast region, the Mekong Delta and the whole country.

MOCST’s Deputy Minister Ho An Phong speaking at the event (Photo: TITC)

Mr. Ho An Phong, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MOCST) highly appreciated the mark, rise, maturity, and success of the City Tourism Festival. Along with the rapid recovery of Vietnam tourism in recent times, Ho Chi Minh City tourism has achieved important results, affirming its leading position among localities in tourism. Tourism Festival is an annual event, achieving particularly high results, achieving the goal of stimulating domestic demand, creating an attractive playground for businesses and localities, and creating tourism development links between Ho Chi Minh City and localities.

Ho Chi Minh City needs to become the core tourism centre of the country, notably historical tourism with more than 300 years of establishment and development of the City; exploiting the characteristics of modern urban areas to bring different experiences to visitors; continue to maintain cooperation in developing ecotourism in the Mekong Delta; continue to affirm the mission of City tourism not only with the southern provinces but also with the northern and central provinces through a chain of development cooperation links; promoting the development and completion of smart tourism platforms to enhance convenience and experience for tourists; turning the City into the region's MICE tourism centre.

Leaders and delegates kicking off the Festival (Photo: TITC)

This year's festival has more than 150 booths from 45 provinces and cities; businesses providing travel and hotel services; Airlines, shopping destinations… The special highlight of the Festival is the explosion of tourism stimulus programs with nearly 400 products and services with a total value of nearly VND 50 billion.

Festival goers also have the opportunity to participate in the Festival map game; watch special art performances, street magic, see performances of various types of ethnic heritage, Acoustic; participate in a workshop on painting bags/cup bases/fans or making scented bags from coffee grounds…

The opening night took place a ceremony to honour the City's leading tourism businesses in 2023 in 11 field groups.

(Photo: TITC)

Leaders and delegates taking souvenir photo (Photo: TITC)

Within the framework of the Festival, a series of meaningful activities also took place, such as: seminar on transforming tourism business models to update world trends; Nghe An and Thai Nguyen tourism promotion conferences in the City; organising famtrip groups to introduce the City's typical tourism products; space connecting the City's destination services with international travel businesses; tourism job exchange platform…

Tourism Information Technology Center