Ho Chi Minh City Essay

Introduction

Tourism is one of the most growing among the global economy, which contributes about 9.8% of world GDP (WTTC, 2015).

Ho Chi Minh City or Saigon as commonly called is one of the most famous tourist’s attractions because of its local friendliness, wide range of food diversity, multicultural and high pace of life. Regarding to tourism industry, according to Cong (2015), it contributed approximately 11% GDP to the city’s economy. Therefore, tourism industry is bringing a huge profit in the government budget. In addition, making an effort to sustain the industry is an intricate task and it is contemporarily a long way to do so.

Destination image is one of the most vital aspects that leads to the success in the tourist destination marketing

weather, temperature, hours of sunshine , rainfall, beaches, quality of seawater, length of beaches, overcrowding of beaches, protected natural reserves, wealth of countryside, lakes, deserts, mountains, variety and uniqueness of flora and fauna); (2) tourist leisure and recreation (i.e. accommodation, number of beds, quality, restaurants number , bars, discos and clubs, hotels and self-catering, ease of access, tourist centres and network of tourist information, excursions at destination); (3) natural environment (i.e. beauty of the scenery, attractiveness, air and noise pollution and traffic congestion, overcrowding, cleanliness); (4) general infrastructure (i.e. development and quality of roads, private and public transport facilities, airports and ports, development of health services, development of telecommunications and commercial infrastructure, extent of building development); (5) culture, history, and art (i.e. festival, concerts, handicraft, gastronomy, folklore, monuments, museums, historical buildings, religion , customs and ways of life); (6) social environment (i.e. language barriers, underprivileged and poverty, life quality, hospitality and friendliness of the local residents); (7) tourist infrastructure (i.e. accommodation, number of beds ,categories, quality, restaurants number, quality, bars, discos and clubs, hotels and

Additionally, in total of 988 hotels, 13 of them are 5-stars hotel from global companies such as Accor and Metric.

(4) General Infrastructure: Tan Son Nhat International Airport is currently the largest international airport in Vietnam. Nguyen and David (2009) believe that the construction of a new airport in Long Thanh, Dong Nai, and neighbour 50km northeast to the city can solve the over density of inbound and outbound flights.