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Orientation and Solutions for Tourism Development in Ho Chi Minh City in International Integration


CHAPTER 3: ORIENTATION AND SOLUTIONS FOR TOURISM DEVELOPMENT IN HO CHI MINH CITY IN INTERNATIONAL INTEGRATION

PERIOD 2016 - 2025

3.1. Orientation of tourism development in Ho Chi Minh City in international integration

3.1.1. World and regional tourism development trends

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Globalization and international integration are the inevitable trends of the world, due to the process of international economic integration and the influence of the information technology era developing very rapidly, the world economy is increasingly closely linked and interdependent. Accordingly, each country must open its economy and participate in the international division of labor, considering the international market as both an input and an output for the consumption of goods and services. This is the foundation for the formation of integration in which the role of the tourism industry is considered very important. Faced with this opportunity, the tourism industry needs to expand international economic relations, loosen the market and space for tourism activities, because only by integrating and constantly cooperating in both breadth and depth with countries around the world, can we take advantage of capital resources, knowledge transfer and modern technology, thereby the tourism industry will quickly mature and improve its competitiveness.

According to the forecast of the World Tourism Organization, by 2020, the global tourism industry will develop strongly, the number of international tourists will increase rapidly to about 1.602 billion people in 2020. Total revenue from global tourism activities will reach about 2,000 billion USD. The 21st century will form new tourism trends such as: tourism to explore world cultures, requiring the tourism industry of each country to diversify local cultural tourism products; discovery and adventure tourism is also a popular type of tourism, tourists will tend to explore wild places such as: tropical forests in Vietnam or some Southeast Asian countries.

Orientation and Solutions for Tourism Development in Ho Chi Minh City in International Integration

The world economy is taking place with the main trend of peace, multilateralization and globalization along with the strong development of science and technology, transportation, etc. In terms of society, people's spiritual life is improved, the world


is changing with the trend of social working time decreasing and leisure time increasing. The booming urbanization is an opportunity to develop entertainment services, which has had a profound impact on the economy and contributed to the development of the tourism economy. Green tourism is a trend chosen by many tourists, it is predicted that in the period 2015 - 2020, about 7% of the total number of tourists will choose green tourism. In the coming time, many countries in the world will take advantage of their advantages to develop green tourism, including Vietnam. The trend of developing green tourism in the 21st century promises to have many spectacular breakthroughs.

Vietnam's recent accession to the ASEAN bloc has really created momentum for the tourism industry to take off more easily, while simultaneously enhancing the promotion and advertising of high quality, expanding the liberalization of tourism in the region. Taking advantage of all resources to develop and diversify products, aiming to gain an important position in the international division of labor, being competitive enough in the free market, and gradually integrating into the world firmly. On that basis, the industry's functional agencies have also issued guiding documents, supported, inspected, and urged businesses in the industry. The results have shown many very positive signs, the number of tourists to the city has increased. The number of tourists to Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam has increased significantly, the phenomena that negatively affect the image of Vietnam tourism have been partly overcome, many tourism activities have gone into depth, tourism products are diverse, tourism services have quite good quality, gradually meeting the needs of tourists, thereby creating attractiveness for tourism in Ho Chi Minh City in particular and Vietnam in general.

3.1.2. Orientation and goals of tourism development in Ho Chi Minh City in international integration

3.1.2.1. Orientation for tourism development in Ho Chi Minh City

Ho Chi Minh City has a particularly favorable location for tourism development because it is a gateway for trade between domestic and foreign places; a road traffic hub and a transit station for passengers from the Southern region to the Mekong Delta or to the Southeast and South Central provinces. On the other hand, the city is also a place where


River, sea and air routes should be able to link with neighboring countries to form very convenient and unique tourist routes.

Regarding climate characteristics, Ho Chi Minh City has a tropical monsoon climate, with equatorial characteristics, so the temperature is high and quite stable throughout the year. There are many sunny days. The rainy season is from May to November, the dry season is from December to April. All year round, it is exploited by tourists to serve tourism, most tourists think that the climate of Ho Chi Minh City is very pleasant. Located in the downstream of the Dong Nai River and Saigon River systems. Many rivers and canals have widths and depths suitable for waterway traffic, especially for large-tonnage ships, which can dock at Saigon port; and small-tonnage ships can follow the rivers and canals to the Eastern and Western regions of the South. The Dong Nai River in particular has many branches flowing through the Sac forest to the sea, including the very wide and deep Long Tau River. Taking advantage of that advantage, the tourism industry has used Long Tau River for cruise ships to enter and exit Saigon Port, and at the same time opened a river tourism route from Ho Chi Minh City to Can Gio to visit the Sac forest area and neighboring areas. Saigon and Dong Nai rivers play an important role in attracting tourists. Saigon River, from Nha Be to Lai Thieu, the winding river with poetic scenery on both banks has made tourists take advantage of it to exploit the attractive river tourism route. On Dong Nai River, the section along the border between the city and Dong Nai province is also used for sightseeing and tourism purposes. Ho Chi Minh City's hydrological system has contributed to the river landscape of Saigon. This not only helps tourism developers take advantage of the natural landscape but it is also a historical - cultural relic associated with the history of formation and development of Ho Chi Minh City. Therefore, while developing, the tourism industry should exploit the unique features of Saigon’s river culture as well as actively participate in maintaining and preserving those identities. This will also be one of the ways to create alternative products, increase the diversity of tourism products, and one of the ways to retain the “soul” of a modern city: bustling but very harmonious with ancient features, bringing unique features to tourists. This will be very suitable for the trend of sustainable development.


Although the biological resources of Ho Chi Minh City are not abundant, in return, some amusement parks have been exploited such as: Binh Quoi - Thanh Da tourist village, Van Thanh tourist area; Dam Sen cultural park, zoo, Can Gio mangrove forest, Cu Chi eco-tourism area... which have attracted a large number of tourists because these areas can be used to organize eco-tourism activities in the heart of a dynamic city. However, most of the above tourist areas can only be exploited and serve domestic tourists on weekends, they are not large enough to serve international tourists. The industry has focused on taking advantage of the wildlife area in Can Gio to develop into an eco-tourism area. The city government has invested 70 billion VND in this project to conserve nature, restore ecology, care for and protect forests, build infrastructure, stabilize the community, conduct scientific research, propaganda and education... When completed, this place will become a biosphere reserve so it can be used to develop types of tourism such as: eco-tourism, including marine ecology and mangrove forests; picnic, resort, study and discovery tourism. This will be an invaluable resource, one of the top-ranked restored forests in Southeast Asia, contributing to increasing the diversity and attractiveness of biological resources, and will be the lungs of Ho Chi Minh City and some neighboring provinces in improving the quality of the environment here.

Human resources are a very unique feature of Ho Chi Minh City with a 300-year history of land reclamation and heroic history of fighting against foreign invaders, experiencing many historical events, through many stages of development of the country, Ho Chi Minh City people with dynamic and innovative and friendly character, will increase the attractiveness of cultural and historical tourism. This resource includes material and non-material cultural components... carrying a certain human value and creating a unique feature for tourism products. Those values ​​include: the history of formation and development, relics, architectural works, museums, handicrafts, customs, culinary culture... All will be the driving force to promote the development of research tourism, research enjoyment... Thereby


will create the cultural value of Ho Chi Minh City because it represents the value of crystallized cultural creativity, with high attraction expressed by the following types of resources:

Ho Chi Minh City has the largest population in the country with nearly 10 million people. This is where many communities from different localities gather, after the Vietnamese are the Chinese, accounting for about half a million people living in Cho Lon and concentrated in districts 5; 6; 10; 11. They are very good at trading, services, especially food services and handicraft manufacturing. That is why those places will have a unique culinary culture of the Chinese and this has attracted many tourists. In addition, the customs of different ethnic groups living in the city have woven a diverse cultural spectrum, which has great appeal to tourists. Taking advantage of this strength, in recent times, the Ho Chi Minh City tourism industry has promoted the project of "cultural - tourism quarter" in District 5 to diversify tourism products. This is one of the ways to create unique features to turn tourism products into sustainable products.

Cultural and historical relics are invaluable resources of the nation, playing an important role in tourism development, such as: National History Museum, Ho Chi Minh City Museum, War Remnants Museum, Fine Arts Museum... Up to now, according to the Department of Culture and Information, in Ho Chi Minh City there are 47 historical and cultural relics that are national relics, including 22 historical relics, 23 architectural and artistic relics and 2 archaeological relics. Thus, the relic density of Ho Chi Minh City is only 2.24 relics.

/100km2 although this city is considered one of the key tourist destinations of the country. If compared with some other places in the country, for example: in Hanoi, according to data from the Institute of Tourism Development Research, there are 43 relics/100km2, Hai Phong is 19.9 relics/100km2 ... then the density of relics in Ho Chi Minh City is still too modest. On the other hand, according to the assessment of some experts, conservation, especially educating the community to preserve relics and expand cultural tourism has not received due attention. In general, the relics included in the list of tourist services are still too few in terms of quantity and quality, not reflecting the cultural and historical characteristics of the land of Saigon - Gia Dinh, where many currents converge.


culture, while more than half of tourists coming to Ho Chi Minh City mainly come to learn about the history and customs of the people of Saigon. Therefore, a thorough investigation to discover more new relics, as well as planning for preservation and restoration will enrich the list of places to visit, learn about the art of architecture, sculpture and the lifestyle and ways of living of the Vietnamese people. Recognizing the important role of this resource, the Department of Culture and Information of Ho Chi Minh City conducted a general survey of relics from 2001 to 2014 and discovered nearly 1,000 works and locations with signs of being historical and cultural relics; at the same time, it also recommended to the Ministry to recognize 13 more national relics and 152 city-level relics. This will be a good opportunity for tourism development because in the future when this resource is supplemented, the ability to attract tourists to Ho Chi Minh City will be even greater.

Ho Chi Minh City has a number of valuable museums such as: Revolutionary Museum, Ton Duc Thang Museum, Southern Women's Museum, History Museum, City Fine Arts Museum... The most prominent is the War Remnants Museum, which according to statistics in 2015 attracted more than 650,000 visitors. The city has invested over 12 billion VND to expand the scale and enrich the content and form of the War Remnants Museum. This will create unique features and increase the sustainability of tourism products, and at the same time, it is also a way to call for love of peace. However, experts say that in the past, the combination between museums and tourism has not been really tight, still spontaneous and lacking in synchronization, so it has not fully promoted its functions to serve tourism. The museum only stops at the main function of storage, while other functions such as education, conservation ... have not been exploited properly. This will reduce the sustainability of tourism products. Therefore, it is necessary to promote all the functions of museums by changing the arrangement to be scientific, rich and truly attractive. Thus, the tourism industry can use museums to enrich cultural tourism because we have not yet fully exploited the value of this resource. In the future, it is necessary to include this type in the strategy.


sustainable development because this is one of the ways to improve the quality of tourism products.

Ho Chi Minh City is very diverse in terms of residential communities, due to historical conditions, so the structure of folk festivals is also very rich. The tourism industry needs to take advantage of this strength by exploiting festivals of residential communities: Chinese, Khmer, Cham, folk and traditional festivals; international and local religious festivals... to serve tourism. However, the content of festival activities is still spontaneous, unprofessional, sometimes leaning towards superstition... although in the past, the city has tried its best to invest in this activity. Therefore, it is necessary to plan festivals and invest more deeply, for example: it is necessary to determine the content, characteristics, purpose, meaning... of each specific festival, and at the same time combine with culinary performances, ethnic arts, traditional costumes to create unique tourism products that express the quintessence of the nation, because it is not only an effort to attract tourists but also a responsibility to seriously promote the national cultural identity of a country's civilization. It can be said that with diverse and rich human resources, the tourism industry is exploited reasonably to create unique cultural tourism products, enriching people's lives and attracting tourists.

Based on the potentials and strengths of Ho Chi Minh City, it is possible to identify basic orientations for the city's tourism development in the coming time to meet the requirements of international integration, including:

- Tourism development must be associated with trade development and preservation of national cultural identity to make “Tourism truly a spearhead economic sector” to contribute to the growth and economic restructuring of the city. City tourism development must be associated with socialization so that people and economic sectors can participate in activities and build a tourism environment; promote tourism promotion, enhance integration and proactively develop international relations.

- There needs to be strategic solutions to protect and restore tourism resources, harmoniously develop exploitation and conservation, protect and build the environment.


nature, tourism environment, infrastructure development... In the development process, it is necessary to build a safe, friendly and civilized tourism environment, strengthen international promotion and cooperation, proactively integrate and compete effectively with regional tourism on the basis of exploiting potential and comparative advantages to improve service quality and diversify tourism products. The tourism industry, together with other sectors and districts, needs to build and organize cultural tourism programs and events, diversify and improve product quality such as expanding tourism service programs to achieve

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Quickly develop cultural and artistic performance programs to serve tourists, implement river tourism programs...

- Strengthening the promotion of tourism market expansion, in addition to key markets, potential markets such as groups of countries and countries in Northeast Asia, Northern Europe, France, Germany, the United States, Australia, ASEAN... it is necessary to pay attention to promoting abroad in the country, promoting the image of the destination, creating opportunities for domestic tourism businesses to meet, connect, and sell products with international businesses. In addition, it is necessary to continue to exploit the maximum advantages of mass media, especially television in introducing the image of the city's destination. Tourism promotion is focused on improving professionalism, focusing on developing and promoting the image and tourist destinations of the city on mass media, tourism sections on television such as "Dynamic Vietnamese Tourism" (HTV7), "Travel and Life" (HTV9).

- Focus on investing in building tourism infrastructure, selectively building a number of high-quality, competitive products; upgrading and building key tourist attractions, tourist areas, and tourist routes of international significance. Planning for tourism development investment is one of the important solutions to promote

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