Ho Chi Minh City establishes its position on the international tourism map

Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Industry has continuously innovated in the period 2020-2025, with breakthrough ideas on product quality, service standards and building and developing the brand of the City of Tourism, thereby bringing home a series of international awards.

The city has also become a destination to host many international events of cities around the world such as the General Assembly of the Tourism Promotion Organization of Global Cities (TPO); Roundtable Conference of Business Partner Cities.

With its established position on the international tourism map, Ho Chi Minh City will have a solid foundation to implement its tourism development strategy in the new period.

Brand positioning of tourist city

Tourism is one of the key economic sectors, identified as the key development pillar of Ho Chi Minh City. To position the brand as “Tourist City”, the City’s Tourism industry has continuously restructured its products, focusing on building new tours and routes while upgrading and renewing existing tours and routes.

In the 2020-2025 period, one of the outstanding solutions is to organize a series of unique tourism events, playing a role in connecting Vietnamese tourism with international and regional markets, typically: Ho Chi Minh City International Tourism Fair (ITE HCMC), Ao Dai Festival, City River Festival and City International Marathon.

International visitors visit downtown Ho Chi Minh City. (Photo: Hong Dat/VNA)

It is also from the series of events that have been maintained and organized annually and continuously for many years that the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism industry has marked remarkable progress on the international tourism map, gradually bringing the City's brand closer to global tourists.

In particular, the Ho Chi Minh City River Festival 2024 brought great pride to the City when it simultaneously won two Gold Awards at the 22nd International Business Awards (IBA) in 2025, held in Portugal - one of the world's leading prestigious awards under the Stevie Awards system of the United States. Specifically, the Festival was honored with the Gold Award in the category "Art, Entertainment & Public - Festival", while the opening art program "Legendary Train" continued to win the Gold Award in the category "Cultural Event".

This is a special milestone, as the River Festival has become one of the few Vietnamese events to achieve double international success, affirming the growing position and influence of the City's tourism in the international arena.

Ho Chi Minh City also continues to affirm its position as a dynamic destination in Asia when it was honored with the TPO Best Awards 2025 Tourism Marketing Award within the framework of the 12th General Assembly of the Tourism Promotion Organization for Global Cities (TPO 2025) in 2025, with the campaign "Find Your Vibes".

Surpassing many major cities in the world to win this prestigious award has affirmed the city's creative efforts, cooperation in promoting and elevating its position as a modern, identity-rich urban area on the international tourism map.

Not only that, the success in co-organizing a series of four major international events including: the General Assembly of the Tourism Promotion Organization for Global Cities (TPO 2025), the 19th Ho Chi Minh City International Tourism Fair (ITE HCMC 2025), the 3rd "Connecting the International Supply Chain - Vietnam International Sourcing" event in 2025 and the Ho Chi Minh City Export Forum in 2025, has created an international economic-tourism week, contributing to affirming the pioneering role of Ho Chi Minh City in the strategy of sustainable economic-tourism development, deep integration with the region and the world.

TPO 2025 and ITE HCMC 2025 not only promote MICE tourism (conferences, exhibitions, events), but also link tourism with trade, logistics and export, gathering 41 delegations of ministries and branches in charge of tourism, Mayors/Chairmen of international cities; 256 international buyers from 32 countries and territories; more than 30 leading travel corporations in the world attending; and all provinces and cities in the country.

The two events also attracted more than 20,050 business appointments; 46,100 visitors, creating an important driving force for the Vietnamese tourism industry in general and Ho Chi Minh City in particular in expanding the international network, increasing business opportunities, promoting the image of Vietnam on the world tourism map and promoting the development of green and sustainable tourism.

From the perspective of a business accompanying many events in Ho Chi Minh City, Ms. Tran Phuong Linh, Director of Marketing - Information Technology, Ben Thanh Tourist Service Joint Stock Company (BenThanh Tourist) shared that by participating in regional and international events, the Company has promoted the introduction to visitors to Vietnam of a variety of products that keep up with the trend of green and sustainable tourism such as SUP Rowing on the Saigon River; A Peaceful Day in the Land of Steel...

These products are designed by the company to target international tourists, ensuring to satisfy their taste of enjoying the unique landscapes and spaces of Vietnam, while deeply experiencing the cultural values and local life.

For the international tourist market to Vietnam, in addition to traditional markets such as Northern Europe, in the coming period, the Company plans to expand cooperation with partners in Eastern Europe, focusing on developing the high-end customer segment combining MICE, healthcare and culture.

Top tourist destinations in Asia

According to Mr. Le Truong Hien Hoa, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, the role of the City in organizing international tourism events is not only to host large-scale activities, but more importantly, to introduce new products, services and the image of a modern, friendly, and unique city to international friends.

International visitors visit and shop at Ben Thanh Market. (Photo: Hong Dat/VNA)

In addition, the City's tourism industry coordinates with localities nationwide to introduce the characteristics, potentials and new tourism products of each region to the international community; conveying messages of Vietnamese tourism, from mechanisms, policies, to sustainable development trends; at the same time demonstrating a spirit of cooperation, openness, readiness to accompany and welcome the international community.

On the contrary, international tourism events held annually in Ho Chi Minh City are also important opportunities for international businesses, corporations and investors to come to Vietnam. Not only participating in activities within the framework of the event, the business community and international visitors also actively attend seminars, forums... to share experiences and tourism trends in the world to help position the image of Vietnam tourism in general, and Ho Chi Minh City in particular, on the world tourism map.

With a series of international awards in its development journey, Ho Chi Minh City's tourism industry has also contributed to making the city one of the best cities in the world for retaining residents, ranked 2nd and surpassing many developed cities such as Singapore, Sydney or Berlin, according to the City Pulse 2025 survey conducted by the Gensler Research Institute, USA. This result shows that Ho Chi Minh City is not only a place to work or travel, but has become a place worth staying, worth living and inspiring residents in the long term.

This is also one of the bases for Ho Chi Minh City's tourism industry to move to the 2025-2030 period, with a strategy to promote investment attraction to develop leading tourist destinations in Asia through a variety of high-quality products imbued with traditional cultural identity; developing tourism combined with international fair-exhibition events...

Ho Chi Minh City entering a new development phase in the context of consolidation is an unprecedented turning point in the history of urban development in Vietnam, requiring a comprehensive reconfiguration of development space, with a new vision as an "international megacity" of Southeast Asia, in the top 100 most livable cities in the world.

Ho Chi Minh City's tourism industry now has a new look, with 808 tourism resources, 7,211 tourism businesses, 9,540 tour guides, and 4,243 accommodation establishments.

In this context, Ho Chi Minh City needs to rebuild the City's tourism development strategy, reposition the brand and connect within the region.

Mr. Vo Anh Tai, Deputy General Director of Saigon Tourist Group, said that in order to develop the City's tourism into a truly spearhead economic sector and become one of the main pillars to create a driving force to promote the city's socio-economic development in the coming time, it is necessary to focus on planning and building a strategy for developing the City's tourism for the period 2025-2030, with a vision to 2045.

Saigontourist Group is ready to accompany localities in research, investment, product development and connecting regional tourism ecosystems, in order to exploit the potential of linkages to create breakthrough momentum.

“The city needs to establish high-quality tourism and services as one of the strategic pillars until 2045, aiming for the "4 worth" goals: Worth living - worth visiting - worth remembering - worth investing. At the same time, tourism planning must be integrated into the overall urban planning, forming a regional mega-urban model to promote inter-regional strengths and create a closed tourism value chain,” Mr. Tai proposed.

On the eve of the 1st Congress of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee, term 2025-2030, some tourism businesses expect that the new term will have policies to support tourism promotion events; along with tax exemption policies when achieving green tourism certification, attracting investment.

Ho Chi Minh City after the merger is the land of tunnels, so there are policies to encourage and support the development of tourism types associated with history, source tourism, and historical research./.

(TTXVN/Vietnam+)

Source: https://www.vietnamplus.vn/thanh-pho-ho-chi-minh-xac-lap-vi-the-tren-ban-do-du-lich-quoc-te-post1069632.vnp