HCM City’s tourism dept surveys tourists

HCMC’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism will conduct a survey among the city’s top tourism source markets namely the U.S., Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia and South Korea as well as another for Japan, a tourism official said.
Nguyen Viet Anh, head of the department’s Travel Division, told the Daily that the survey’s purpose was to give the division an insight into what travelers expect when visiting the city.
To obtain the information, the division will distribute questionnaires to tourists and collect data concerning market trends and visitors’ demands from various other sources.
“Results from the survey will help us to identify specific needs and develop tourism products and promotion programs for each market in the coming time,” he said.
Anh said the division expects to complete the survey next month.
Apart from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism’s (VNAT) market research, few surveys have been conducted to gauge HCMC’s tourism sector in recent years, even though it receives more international visitors than any other region in the country.
Anh said that the department is collaborating with the HCMC University of Economics to carry out a large-scale survey on District 1’s Pham Ngu Lao backpacker quarter surrounded by De Tham, Bui Vien, Pham Ngu Lao and Do Quang Dau streets.
“The city has planned to spend VND500 million on the survey. Both the city government and the tourism sector expect to find helpful information to develop the quarter,” Anh said.
The survey will be completed late this year.
According to the department, HCMC has already received about 1.08 million international travelers in the first four months of this year, up 9% year-on-year, or more than half of the country’s total foreign visitors.
The tourism industry has contributed around VND12.6 trillion to HCMC this year, an annual increase of 19%.