A series of tours have been discounted for the summer season, the peak time for domestic tourism, by Ho Chi Minh City-based travel firms, as part of the Shopping Season 2023 program launched by the municipal Department of Industry and Trade.

Tourism promotion is the focus for the second phase of the Shopping Season 2023, which was initiated in mid-June, said Nguyen Nguyen Phuong, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Industry and Trade.

Through the second-phase program, which began in mid-July, the municipal Department of Tourism will launch shopping and discount tours in the city to attract more visitors.

Multiple tour operators in Ho Chi Minh City are joining the 2023 tourism promotion program to shore up the cooperation between the Department of Industry and Trade and the Department of Tourism, in an attempt to offer discounted packages of tours, catering, and shopping to tourists and locals.

Huynh Phan Phuong Hoang, deputy general director of Vietravel, said that the firm had registered to lower prices for domestic and outbound tours.

Overseas travel has been more popular in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the firm has offered affordable outbound tours to further promote tourism.

“Many tours have been discounted by 10 percent compared to the pre-pandemic period,” said Phuong Hoang.

Nguyen Minh Man from TST Tourist said that the travel firm registered to join the tourism promotion program with five domestic tours discounted by up to 28 percent.

Among them are the Thu Duc - green riverside city tour and the Saigon River tour.

Many travel firms in the city said that they would keep a close watch on customers’ demands and tastes to decide which tours will be discounted and which preferential packages will be added.

Tran The Dung, general director of Vietluxtour Travel JSC, said that the firm’s tour sales reached over 85 percent of its summer business target.

The firm served more individual tourists than groups of visitors from companies.

Nguyen Thi Anh Hoa, director of the Department of Tourism, said that the city’s tourism generated high revenue in the first half of the year.

To maintain the positive results in the second half of 2023, the department should introduce new tourism products and services at reasonable prices.

“During the upcoming river festival slated for August, the city will launch 30-50 tourism promotion programs, including 20 waterway tourism activities to bring exciting experiences to tourists,” Hoa said.

The department is working to diversify river-based tourism products, and has joined hands with experts and tourism insiders to study and form new products based on the riverside service economic development project, according to Hoa.

“Resolution 98, which was approved by the lawmaking National Assembly on June 24, grants special mechanisms and policies to Ho Chi Minh City in various fields, enabling the city to boost tourism and attract investors to the industry," Hoa underlined.

“Several bottlenecks facing the city’s riverside tourism development will be removed to smooth the diversity of tourism products in the future."

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