Night economy keeps tourists in Ho Chi Minh City

Retaining tourists with night economy

A representative of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism said that Ho Chi Minh City has entertainment spaces in walking streets, cafes, restaurants, bars, nightclubs, art shows, waterbus tours, watching the sunset on a luxury cruise, enjoying night cuisine on the Saigon River, sightseeing the city with the Hoff on-Hoff off double-decker bus... with a frequency of 7 nights/week.

Therefore, developing the night economy is a strategic solution to promote the entire tourism industry. Tourism, entertainment, cuisine, and night services are among the three groups of tourism products that the city focuses on developing, along with the advantages of natural landscapes, entertainment spaces, and diverse types of tourism... This will be the driving force to promote unique and special night tourism products and improve the quality of tourists' experiences.

Night-time economy is boosting the development of Ho Chi Minh City's tourism industry. (Photo: D.V)

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, developing the night economy is one of the ways to retain tourists longer, while at the same time, promoting increased spending during their stay in Ho Chi Minh City. Therefore, the synchronous and systematic planning of walking streets in the city center contributes positively to the development of entertainment, culinary, and shopping tourism associated with the city's night economy.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, revenue from the night economy also contributes to the overall results of the tourism industry. The number of visitors to the night streets specializing in culinary business in Districts 1, 3, 10 and Go Vap is increasing, causing revenue to skyrocket.

In the first 5 months of 2024, international visitors to Ho Chi Minh City are estimated to reach more than 2.2 million, up nearly 32% over the same period in 2023. Domestic visitors reached nearly 14 million, up 1.6% over the same period last year. Total tourism revenue reached more than 76,000 billion VND, up nearly 14% over the same period last year.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism believes that the night-time economy will contribute to economic development, create jobs and income for workers, and make the most of local resources to attract tourists, creating new momentum for social development.

Therefore, to "light up" the night economy, there needs to be different mechanisms and policies suitable for the night economy... from which to propose specific, comprehensive, and synchronous prevention and management directions.

Solutions for developing the night economy

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, the night economy requires synchronous coordination between the government, businesses and people. To make the night economy effective, it requires the participation and mobilization of resources from the city government, departments, branches, local people and tourism workers. The final destination is a tourism product that can be exploited and attract tourists, as well as contribute to promoting the city's economy.

In particular, focus on regulations on operating areas; priority products for night-time development; operating hours; operating licenses; operating standards of enterprises and individual business households participating in the night-time economy. Clearly define the responsibilities and authorities between state management agencies in managing night-time economic activities on the basis of increasing decentralization and delegation of authority to localities in managing and developing the night-time economy.

In addition, each district also needs to research and build a night-time economic development model suitable to the advantages and practical conditions in the locality, especially suitable to the ability to build infrastructure, investment resources and the ability to mobilize and attract investment in each specific location.

Saigon River has many attractive night-time economic activities. (Photo: D.V)

Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism believes that developing tourism associated with the night-time economy needs to ensure the noise environment because currently, some night-time entertainment services have high-capacity sound operations, and entertainment activities that take place all night have caused significant impacts on tourists and local residents in the surrounding areas.

At the same time, it is necessary to focus on ensuring security and order, healthy business, preventing price gouging, price gouging, threats, maintaining environmental hygiene, traffic safety, social security and order, etc.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, tourism businesses are not ready to invest in designing additional products to effectively exploit these potentials. Typically, organizing tours to explore Saigon at night with Vespa, motorbike or cyclo... Previously, a few businesses deployed this type of service, but after 2 years of the pandemic, it has not been restored yet.

In addition, a great advantage of Ho Chi Minh City is the Saigon River, which is the highlight of night tourism activities with dinner services on the river, on cruise ships or overnight boats on the river will attract more visitors. However, some regulations on wharves, piers, anchorage areas, operating costs, etc. are affecting the encouragement of investment and development of this type of service.

Famous nightlife spots in Ho Chi Minh City

Some famous culinary cultural spaces and nighttime food services in Ho Chi Minh City: Bui Vien night street (District 1); nighttime food streets such as: Vinh Khanh (District 4), Ho Thi Ky Food Street (District 10), Nguyen Thien Thuat (District 3), Food Street Market (District 1), Hoa Binh Square (Go Vap District), Dam Sen Cultural Park organizes nighttime entertainment activities along Tan Hoa canal (District 11), Food - shopping street Hau Giang street (District 6) ...

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Source: https://vtcnews.vn/kinh-te-dem-giu-chan-du-khach-o-lai-tp-hcm-ar873150.html