Ho Chi Minh City is facing a shortage of Korean-, Japanese-, German-, and Spanish-speaking tour guides, with those able to speak these languages accounting for only 13 percent of the total tour guides in the city, said director of the municipal Department of Tourism Nguyen Thi Anh Hoa.

She added that the number of Korean- and Japanese-speaking tour guides in the city is the most modest, currently making up only 0.06 and 0.39 percent, respectively.

The Consulate General of Japan in Ho Chi Minh City and the Department of Tourism on Monday signed an agreement on the organization of a Japanese language training course for state officials working in the tourism sector, workers at restaurants and hotels, and tour guides.

At the signing ceremony, Hoa said the cooperation is aimed at better serving Japanese tourists as Japan is one of the key traditional source markets of the tourism sector in Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam as a whole.

The city will focus on training staff who can speak foreign languages.

Ho Chi Minh City currently has some 7,340 certified tour guides, including 4,360 international ones and 2,980 local ones.

Earlier, the municipal tourism sector had joined hands with the Consulate General of South Korea in Ho Chi Minh City and the Korean language center in Ho Chi Minh City to organize two free-of-charge Korean language training courses for tourism officials.

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism is enrolling trainees for a Spanish language class, which was scheduled to start next month.

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