HCM City (VNS/VNA) - The tourism sector of Ho Chi MinhCity needs to focus on developing river-based tourism, cuisine tourism, MICEtourism as well as organise festivals and nighttime activities, a municipal leaderhas said.

Speaking at a conference held this week, Chairwoman of the municipalPeople’s Council Nguyen Thi Le asked the city’s Department of Tourism todiversify tourism products and step up the adoption of information technologyand digital transformation for marketing and promotion activities as partof measures to boost tourism development.

Marketing and promotion activities needed to focus on majortraditional markets as well as potential markets, Le said.

She ordered the People’s Committee and related departments tobuild more boat docks and upgrade infrastructure to support businesses todevelop river-based tourism products.

Tourism linkages with localities in the Mekong Delta and thesoutheast region needed to be strengthened to create more inter-provincialtours, she said.

"Lack of quality human resources in tourism and travel is oneof the issues that the tourism sector needs to promptly address," sheadded.

Dang Thi Thi Thanh, Deputy General Director of BenThanh Tourist,said tourism businesses found it very difficult to access subsidisedloans as travel firms had no assets to mortgage for the loan.

She proposed that the city authorities offer flexible policies tomake it easier for businesses to get low-interest loans.

Support packages for tourism businesses such as reductions ofvalue-added taxes and corporate income taxes should be extended until yearend, she said.

Huynh Ngoc Van, Director of Ao Dai Museum, said cultural heritageplayed an important role in tourism and coordinated efforts betweencultural and tourism agencies were needed to introduce cultural activities totourists.

It was difficult for museums to continue to keep employees ontheir payroll due to a drop in income, Van said.

Museums in the city needed support from the Government to retainemployees, she said.

Huynh Phan Phuong Hoang, Deputy General Director of Vietravel,said the city’s authorities should support businesses to diversify tourismofferings, promote linkages with neighbouring provinces for inter-provincialtour packages and develop the night economy.

These measures would help tourists stay longer and spend more ontheir trips, Hoang said.

Duong Anh Duc, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee,said tourism was a driving force for economic development, contributingsignificantly to the city’s GDP.

It was vital to improve the quality of products and services andpush for digital marketing to develop tourism sustainably, Duc said.

In the first nine months of this year, the city welcomed more than2.1 million international visitor arrivals and 21.6 million domesticvisitor arrivals. Tourism revenue totalled 92.4 trillion VND (3.88billion USD)./.