Street Food Exploitation Solutions To Attract International Tourists To Ho Chi Minh City

38%

21%

Friends, relatives

25%

16%

Magazines, books, newspapers, internet

Food Festival

Personal research

Chart 2.6: Percentage of international visitors who know about street food through information channels

(Source: Results of a survey of 120 samples by the author in 2017) Domestic street food activities are mainly integrated with general food festival programs such as "Southern Flavors", "Southern Wedding", "Southern Cuisine Reclamation", Southern Cuisine". Although it has attracted a large number of domestic and foreign tourists to participate, it has left an impression on tourists, especially foreign tourists. The time of the event is only a few days, the number of dishes at the stalls is also limited, only a few typical dishes, while Ho Chi Minh City's street food is diverse and rich. Focusing on promoting only one dish such as: Hu Tieu, Bun Bo, Banh Xeo... makes tourists' view of Ho Chi Minh City's street food inaccurate and limited. Tourists mistakenly think that street food here is only that. Meanwhile, other delicious dishes and beautiful, unique drinks are not promoted, cannot reach tourists, or are accessible but do not create highlights. The promotion, promotion, and introduction of street food to the international market is still very weak and has many limitations. The introduction of street food is often included in the promotion and tourism promotion programs of Vietnam in general and Ho Chi Minh City in particular, so it is not really outstanding, does not create a special impression with international friends (Doan Le Phuong Thao,

2014).

Currently, there is no website specializing in street food. This is a huge shortcoming in the era of information technology explosion, when everything is always

searched, traded online.

The best promotion, leaving the deepest impression than anyone else, is the direct sales people. Most international tourists to Ho Chi Minh City are satisfied with the quality of sales services. However, there is still a small number of street food businesses that lack business ethics. The situation of ripping off tourists still occurs. This is really a problem that needs to be solved thoroughly.

Chapter 2 Summary

Chapter 2 has given a general overview of Ho Chi Minh City such as geographical location, traffic, economy..., and evaluated the city's potentials and strengths in tourism development in general and street food development in particular.

Along with that is an assessment of the current status of street food activities such as the diversity of cuisine, street food spots that are attracting customers, dishes that customers often choose, and food hygiene and safety issues... in the three districts to have a complete view, objective assessment, from which to propose solutions for street food development in chapter 3.

Chapter 3: SOLUTIONS TO EXPLOIT STREET FOOD TO ATTRACT INTERNATIONAL TOURISTS TO HO CHI MINH CITY

3.1. Orientation of street food development in tourism development

3.3.1. Basis for building orientations

* City tourism development strategy 2015 - 2020

Implementing the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Development Plan for the period 2015 - 2020 (Project on Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Development Plan to 2020 and vision to 2030, 2015). The City has put forward the following strategies:

Strengthen the leadership of the City Party Committee over the tourism industry in a synchronous, modern, and in-depth manner, from formulating policies to developing solutions and closely directing the implementation of policies. Raise awareness of Party committees, authorities, functional sectors and the people of the City about the role and socio-economic efficiency of the tourism industry.

Enhance the image of “Ho Chi Minh City – A friendly, attractive and safe destination”, promote sustainable tourism growth, create strong changes in the quality of tourism services and products on the basis of strengthening tourism promotion, ensuring a safe and friendly tourism environment for tourists, international cooperation, proactively integrating and effectively competing with tourism in the region. Actively participate in the activities of international tourism organizations, focusing on the Asia-Pacific Cities Tourism Promotion Organization; implement plans to propagate, promote and advertise tourism in key international markets, establish offices and centers to promote tourism in the City to a large number of tourists, especially international tourists.

Focus on training and developing tourism human resources, encourage dynamism and creativity of businesses operating in the tourism sector; promote regional and international cooperation in the field of tourism human resource training, meeting the development requirements of the industry. Create an open mechanism, encourage the initiative and dynamism of all economic sectors and resources to participate in building and developing tourism in the City.

Building a safe and friendly tourism environment to ensure security, order and social safety, building a peaceful city, attracting international visitors. Promoting tourism stimulus programs, focusing on stimulating domestic tourism in conjunction with promoting the development of tourism service industries. Maintaining and further developing the system of standard services for tourists, art programs for tourists; combining with research and development of new and more diverse tourism products, meeting the increasing needs of tourists. In addition, strengthening propaganda work, raising awareness of the entire population in participating in maintaining social order and safety; promoting the spirit of hospitality, friendliness in communication, demonstrating a civilized lifestyle, communication culture, business culture for all classes of people and individuals in professions related to tourism to build a safe and friendly tourism environment, creating a good impression in the hearts of tourists coming to the City.

* Orientation of culinary exploitation in tourism development

Ho Chi Minh City has many favorable conditions for developing culinary tourism in general and cuisine in particular. To affirm the role of cuisine in general and street food in particular in tourism development, according to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism (Project on Planning for Tourism Development in Ho Chi Minh City to 2020 and Vision to 2030, 2015), the city will build and develop typical tourism products and exploit tourism strengths, including developing culinary tourism products with the aim of focusing on international tourists to combine sightseeing and learning, processing regional cuisine in tourist villages, tourist areas; sightseeing and combining to learn about cuisine in and outside the city. In order to create more new tourism products, attracting more domestic and foreign tourists to the city, the City Department of Tourism will regularly organize festivals and culinary festivals to introduce the city's dishes and unique culinary features to domestic and foreign tourists, especially foreign tourists. Thus, it can be seen that culinary activities are an important factor that cannot be separated from tourism activities.

* Tourists' culinary needs at the destination

Cuisine and tourism are always linked together. When having the opportunity to enjoy new and attractive dishes during the trip, tourists will be ready to accept it because it is an interesting experience associated with psychology and daily activities. Cuisine also plays a role in creating a distinct mark between countries. Because, besides the taste and art of preparation,

When promoting food, they often go hand in hand with national branding. This helps to engrave it in the minds of tourists, making them interested in learning more, creating more motivation to decide to visit or return to the tourist destination.

In a survey of international tourists, when asked if they wanted to enjoy local cuisine at their destination, 100% of tourists answered yes. Another result of the survey showed that 71.7% of tourists regularly ate street food, only 18.3% of tourists ate twice and 10% of tourists tried it for the first time (see table 3.1).

Table 3.1: Number of times customers enjoy street food in Ho Chi Minh City

Number of times

Number of guests	Rate (%)	Total
1	12	10	120
2	22	18.3	120
Over 3	86	71.7	120

Maybe you are interested!

(Source: Results of the author's survey of 120 samples in 2017)

Thus, in addition to visiting and enjoying the scenic spots at the destination, buying souvenirs, learning about the culture and customs of the local people, the need to enjoy the typical local cuisine is inevitable.

* Current status of street food development

Research shows that the current culinary situation in the city in general and in District 1, District 3, District 5 still has many shortcomings, not commensurate with the potential. The number of street food planning locations is still limited, the number of culinary promotion programs is still small, not creating a prominent product image; there is a lack of places to provide culinary culture materials to tourists; street stalls, although having local flavors, are difficult to ensure food safety and hygiene standards, affecting the aesthetics and urban civilization, and overcharging tourists is also a difficult problem.

Therefore, the City needs to have appropriate orientations and solutions in developing tourism in general and developing street food in particular.

3.3.2. Orientations for street food development associated with tourism activities

With a rich, diverse and unique culinary culture, Ho Chi Minh City has not yet focused on exploiting all its available strengths. The city needs to plan culinary spots and night food markets in an organized manner to exploit tourism.

In cleaning up and rectifying urban order and sidewalk management, the city needs to consider solutions for the existence of street vendors and sidewalk trading within the framework to maintain a cultural trading feature that attracts tourists while creating conditions for people to stabilize their lives.

It is necessary to replicate the clean street food model in neighborhoods and street food businesses to raise awareness and responsibility of vendors, while ensuring security, order and food safety.

It is necessary to combine the promotion of culinary products with the promotion of national tourism. Travel companies can shape and build more culinary tours or optional night tours, guiding customers to enjoy street food in Ho Chi Minh City. Build a program to evaluate the system according to international standards for restaurants and food stalls that meet standards such as price, service, and amenities provided to customers... In addition, it is necessary to use media, social networks, hot bloggers, and carry out advertisements for outstanding features of Vietnamese tourism and cuisine...

Strengthen food safety and hygiene management at food establishments, especially street food, and there will be strict penalties for establishments that do not meet quality standards.

3.2. Specific solutions

3.2.1. Planning of street food spots

In some cities around the world such as Seoul (Korea), Bangkok (Thailand), Manila (Philippines), street food has become a unique cultural feature that attracts a large number of tourists thanks to proper investment. From the beginning, the governments of these countries have considered street food an important factor in attracting and retaining tourists. The main difficulty in developing street food is the problem of planning food gathering places because if we can plan, we will manage better. Currently, we only have a few places that have been planned and properly invested in such as the Rubik Zoo Food Court, the Food Market, etc.

Ben Thanh Food Street, Bach Dang Park Street Vendor Area, Xom Nha La (82 Nguyen Hue, District 1), Coco5 - Bangkok Street Food Market (68 Nguyen Hue, District 1) and recently the city has officially planned Bui Vien Street (District 1) to become a walking street. These planning points have actively promoted street food to diners. However, these street food spots are still limited in quantity, and in terms of space, they are only concentrated in the city center. Therefore, the city needs solutions to expand street food areas. Some of the following areas can be selected:

In District 1, culinary areas such as Alley 76 Hai Ba Trung, "Fruit Dish Road" Nguyen Canh Chan, Co Bac Food Street... should be planned into dining places because planning creates many advantages, firstly, it creates peace of mind for people when doing business, people feel that street food business is extremely important, thereby increasing their professional sense, secondly, management agencies can easily manage and control culinary business activities.

In District 3, current street food alleys such as Alley 51 Cao Thang, Ban Co Market, Ban Co Area, Banana Garden, Alley 284 Le Van Sy, and Turtle Lake can be planned into street food spots. The district should support investment in facilities and infrastructure for food businesses here. At Ban Co Market, on 108 Nguyen Thien Thuat Street, a street vendor area will be formed, such as Bach Dang Street Vendor Area (District 1). The street here is quite wide, with little traffic, so mobile stalls can be set up, which is both convenient for street vendors and creates favorable conditions for tourists to enjoy food.

In District 5, Chau Van Liem Street (Capital Market area) and Bui Huu Nghia Street (Hoa Binh Market area) can be planned as a culinary area, and traffic can be rerouted to avoid traffic jams during rush hours on these two streets. In order not to affect traffic, businesses can operate in the form of mobile stalls, operating during the weekdays, and the dishes should be in the style and flavor of Chinese people. Currently, there are quite a variety of nighttime culinary activities here, so these areas should be planned as culinary areas for better management.

Plan more street vending areas such as Bach Dang Park and increase the time for organizing sales to 4 days a week including Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

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