The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism set a target of 4.7 million visitors in 2015, making a year-on-year increase of 7 percent.

The total revenue is expected to reach VND 94,600 billion, up 10 percent from last year.

Vice chairwoman of the municipal People’s Committee, Nguyen Thi Hong asked the department to focus on building tourist information centers, promoting high-quality tourist products; developing waterway tourism and building more piers .

HCMC has great potential to develop its waterways for tourism like other countries in the region. Water environment, environmental sanitation, landscapes along Ben Nghe, Tau Hu, Kenh Doi, Kenh Te canals have been improved. However it has very few products to meet the demand for this special tourism and lacks facilities like a fully planned waterway network, boats, harbors, and stopovers for tourists

According to experts and leaders of travel companies, the municipal authorities can develop short day tours presenting daily activities of local people along canals to international visitors. The local government should also create advantage for enterprises to build their own piers to pick up tourists.