HCM City to Launch Airport Tourist Info Center

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism has reached an agreement in principle with the Southern Airport Authority to set up a tourist information center at Tan Son Nhat International Airport by the end of the third quarter or early in the fourth quarter of this year, a tourism official said.

 

The center which will become the first tourist information center run by the city tourism authority will provide free tourism brochures, HCM City tourist maps, and touch-screen computers for tourists to seek information and other services.

 

It will not offer space for tourism companies to display brochures to promote their products. “They must deal with the Southern Airports Authority for the space,” La Quoc Khanh, deputy director of the department said, revealing that his department will provide all publications and touch-screen computers, and the Southern Airport Authority will man staff to operate the center.

 

HCM City currently has two tourist information centers - the Tourist Information Center (TIC) at the corner of Le Loi and Nguyen Hue boulevards in District 1, and Chao Vietnam Center outside of the Reunification Palace in the same district.

 

“The number is too few,” Khanh admitted, revealing that the city would combine with Dat Viet Advertising Company to install around 50 touch-screen computers in the city late this year to provide necessary information for tourist.

 

“We will install these computers within two years. An additional 150 computers will be installed in the second phase, he said.

 

The city welcomed 1.28 million international visitors in the first half of this year, up 11.3 per cent year-on-year.

 

Presently, 8 per cent of international visitors to the city come by air. (SGT, VietNamNet)