The first two months saw the city welcome around 701,000 tourists, or a year-on-year increase of 8.6% compared to a 9.6% drop nationwide. However, there are still concerns that the city’s tourism industry can be outpaced by other localities in the future.

Travel firms at the meeting said HCMC is facing a tough competition with not only other international destinations but also provinces nationwide.

The city’s great edge of having an international airport is getting blunt at a time when other provinces, in addition to beautiful beaches attractive to international tourists, now also build airports that can directly receive international tourists.

The Russian market is an example, said a big travel firm in HCMC. Previously, Russian tourists used to take buses to Binh Thuan, Nha Trang and Phu Quoc after flying to HCMC where they stayed at least one night. However, they are now able to fly directly there, and this change can also be seen at other markets.

“If international tourists come for leisure, agencies will consider flying directly to leisure destinations. Therefore, if the city has nothing special to offer to tourists, it is not easy to attract them,” said the firm’s chairman.

Sharing the idea, Nguyen Thi Khanh, deputy head of the HCMC Tourism Association, said that although the number of international tourists of HCMC-based travel firms has increased recently, the rise was much lower than before. Such a small rise not only results from difficulties of the inbound tourism segment but also the competition among destinations which is getting fiercer, she added.

To solve the problem, HCMC needs to develop distinctive and attractive tourism products soon.

However, the progress of building new products is very slow with no special products launched for many years.

“If the city is unable to create new products soon, tourists will choose other destinations. I think that the city has been aware of this and thus is boosting the development of river tours and connecting with other provinces,” Khanh said.

However, according to Khanh, in addition to river tours, as a big cultural and economic center, HCMC should also boost the shopping and entertainment tourism to attract more tourists.

Vietnamnet