HCM City authorities have asked the police department to consider setting up a travel police bureau to protect tourists.
The city government also told police to strengthen patrol over downtown areas and tourist sites to ensure safety for tourists.
In 2006, the city established its tourist guard team with members recruited from HCM City Voluntary Youth League to serve as security guards. The team has nearly 200 members serving tourists in downtown areas.
According to the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, many tourists have been harassed by street vendors and pickpockets while some have complained of being cheated by taxi drivers.
La Quoc Khanh, deputy director of the department, said the security guards helped tourists in many cases but the team does not have a strong capacity to carry out the mission.
Archaeologists in the central province of Ha Tinh have said they had discovered the remains of a 1km section of an ancient citadel dating back more than 1,600 years at the top of But Mountain Pass in Ky Anh District.
The archaeologists said the section was part of a 30km-long citadel built in 345-375 to protect the country from foreign forces.
The citadel, which leaned on a mountain range and ran through three villages, was made of stones and earth.
A local official said the citadel used to be covered by trees until locals discovered and took stones from the citadel to build a dike several years ago. This practice was stopped by local authorities later.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is planning to hold more cultural and tourism festivals in other countries, including South Korea, Japan, Russia and Norway, this year to promote inbound travel.
Nguyen Van Tinh, head of the ministry's International Co-operation Bureau said that along with such festivals, the bureau would arrange familiarisation trips for foreign media to look into the country's tourism potential.
Last year there were 22 groups of foreign media representatives visiting the nation and, according to the bureau, the number will be higher this year.
Ha Noi authorities have licensed the West Lake Co, Ltd to import 30 tramcars to serve tourists to travel around the West Lake. Along the 18km-long road, the firm will set up 10 tramcar stops. The service will be launched on September 2.
With this tour, tourists will also be able to visit 21 historical and scenic sites along the lake. The first tramcar project for tourists was experimentally implemented in the Ha Noi's Old Quarter, with 13 stops. Ha Noi plans to reduce the number of cyclos and increase tramcars to serve tourists in the Old Quarter.
Tourism Malaysia held on Monday a travel mart Make It Malaysia in Kuala Lumpur as part of the country's efforts to attract more travellers from ASEAN-member countries, Viet Nam in particular.
Besides shopping packages, Malaysia wants to promote golf courses, islands and beaches for newlyweds and incentive travel to Vietnamese tourists.
According to Tourism Malaysia, last year some 123,000 Vietnamese tourists visited Malaysia and arrivals from Malaysia ranked eighth in the top 10 tourism markets to Viet Nam.
Chartered flights will bring hundreds of Japanese tourists to HCM City next month, the major groups to the city since the earthquake and tsunami hit the northeastern section of Japan in March, according to the HCM City-based Vietravel and APEX Viet Nam Co.
Vietravel said three groups with 650 Japanese guests would come to the city in July, after their visit to Cambodia, while APEX said the company would receive over 300 Japanese guests coming on chartered flights later this month.
According to HCM City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the number of Japanese visitors to the city in the first half of the year would rise by 19 per cent, compared with the same period last year, regardless of the March earthquake disaster. — VNS