What is missing in Ho Chi Minh City's tourism to retain international visitors?

Ho Chi Minh City’s tourism sector faces stiff competition and needs to make a lasting impression by shifting from a “whatever we have, we do” mindset to designing and packaging local experiences into emotionally rich narratives.

While the city has abundant tourism resources—culture, cuisine, and the rhythm of urban life—the bottleneck lies in how stories are told and how experiences are packaged, leaving many potential values untransformed into competitive tourism products.

Lack of story and experience packaging

Ho Chi Minh City has long been seen as a dynamic destination that blends diverse cultural and historical values with daily life. Narrow alleys, street food stalls, and the pace of local living can all be turned into attractive tourism products. However, many experiences remain fragmented, lack cohesion, and are not told with sufficient depth.

Martin Koerner, Chief Commercial Officer of The Anam Group, said that a tourism product aiming to leave a mark must be anchored to a specific story. He illustrated this with a simple journey—riding a jeep across a desert dune at sunset, then taking a boat to admire a lotus lake and enjoy tea—arguing that if built into a rich emotional narrative, it can create a clear differentiator by generating moments and stories travelers can carry and share.

Koerner also pointed to a gap between how Vietnam tells its own story and how international visitors receive it. Many travelers do not fully understand the value of a destination, so attracting them depends not only on the product but also on how it is communicated, requiring a shift to the traveler’s perspective and emotions.

Businesses similarly say the city still lacks stories, a gap that cannot be solved without data, technology, and cross-sector collaboration.

From promoting places to building complete products

Nguyen Tien Huy, CEO Localis.vn, said Ho Chi Minh City’s tourism is not lacking experiences, but lacking the way to tell and package them into complete products. Instead of only promoting places, the city should be reimagined through everyday life—people, cuisine, and cultural spaces—so that the synthesis of these elements forms the city’s identity and positioning.

He added that without a digital backbone, these experiences will remain fragmented. By contrast, when integrated into an all-in-one ecosystem, travelers can explore, book services, pay, and personalize itineraries in a seamless experience.

In that direction, the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Promotion Center signed a cooperation agreement with Localis to develop the visithcmc.vn information portal, aiming to turn the platform into a living ecosystem. Beyond providing information, it is expected to continuously update city stories, experiences, and people so that each journey can be designed from a local perspective.

According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, developing visithcmc.vn is not just building a website, but creating an integrated platform to transform tourism in the digital era, where technology aligns with local identity to bring urban vitality closer to global visitors.

Restructuring resources toward a product-oriented approach

In a global tourism landscape moving toward personalization, travelers increasingly seek unique experiences rather than mass tours. This creates an urgent need to restructure tourism products, placing local-life storytelling at the center rather than focusing only on destinations.

Pham Huy Binh, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, said the city does not lack resources, but lacks a way to organize them into concrete products. He called for moving away from “whatever we have, we do” toward deliberate experience design, positioning each area and community as a distinct experiential space.

He emphasized that local communities play a crucial role. When residents participate in the value chain—from storytelling to guiding and service provision—experiences become more authentic and deeper.

Nguyen Cam Tu, Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Promotion Center, said a major weakness today is the lack of linkage between products. Although the city has appealing factors such as cuisine, culture, events, and urban spaces, the pieces are not connected into a coherent journey. “We have many good pieces but they have not been stitched into a continuous story. Without cohesion, each experience, however attractive, remains isolated and hard to sustain long-term,” she said.

She proposed forming a destination alliance to connect businesses, communities, content creators, and authorities to build a seamless, consistent chain of experiences. Promotional activities should also shift from promoting destinations to telling specific stories that connect with travelers’ emotions and needs.

Role of data, technology, and co-creation

Dr. Dương Đức Minh, Vice Chairman of the Scientific and Training Council of the Institute for Economic and Tourism Development, argued that data and technology should be the foundation for restructuring products. By understanding travelers’ movement behavior, needs, and emotional touchpoints, businesses can design flexible, personalized itineraries.

He noted that these stories can only be co-created by managers, businesses, communities, and residents: managers create policies and spaces, businesses implement products, and researchers provide data and scientific evidence.

Key tourism performance indicators

According to The Outbox Company’s “Vietnam’s Travel Landscape 2026” report, Vietnam’s tourism readiness (NPS) to recommend destinations is 24.2, less than half the regional average of 53.4. The report also said average international spending per tourist in Vietnam is about 32 million VND per trip, compared with 39 million in Thailand—suggesting the sector is growing in volume but not delivering deeper experiences that maximize value per visitor.