HCM City (VNA) - HCMCity’s Department of Tourism will focus on developing and marketingdestinations to increase the number of foreign arrivals to the city to sixmillion this year, officials have said.

The city would add to its cultural and tourism events,attractions, and unique experiences to attract visitors, Bui Ta Hoang Vu,director of the department, said.

New products the department plans to launch this year includeriver tourism, cuisine tourism, rural tourism and leisure tourism products aswell as light art and street art festivals, he told a meeting last week.

As the country’s economic and financial hub, the city hasidentified various opportunities for developing tourism, he said.

But tourism promotion spending per visitor to the city is a mere 0.3USD compared to the global average of 5 USD, he said.

He called on the city authority to hike the tourism promotionbudget to grow the sector.

The budget should focus on some of the key segments the city hashuge opportunities to develop such as meetings, incentives, conferences andexhibitions (MICE) tourism, dental tourism and river tourism, he added.

Tran Vinh Tuyen, deputy chairman of the city People’s Committee,said the target of six million foreign arrivals to the city is achievable.

But to fulfill the target, the department cannot act alone andhopes to establish strong partnerships with industries, district authoritiesand tourism-related businesses, he said.

Only with such combined efforts can the opportunities to developthe tourism sector be grasped, he said.

He said river tourism is a priority area of focus for the tourismsector.

He also proposed developing Binh Dien, Thu Duc and Hoc Mon retailmarkets as new tourist destinations.

Every district should promote its typical tourism attractions likeDistrict 5 does with its traditional medicine street and District 1 with itswalking street, he said

The number of visitors to the city this year has topped 500,000,an increase of more than 70,000 compared to the same period last year, headded.-VNA