HCMC – HCMC has the potential to develop passenger transport in combination with waterway tourism, so it is seeking to build appropriate products to exploit this advantage.

The city now has 101 waterway routes with a total length of 913 kilometers, which is convenient for developing waterway tourism.

These waterway routes offer cruise ship tourists easy access to the city center from Nha Rong – Khanh Hoi port or Bach Dang wharf. From the city center, tourists can also take a river tour to outlining districts such as Cu Chi and Can Gio.

Despite its potential, the waterway tourist products of HCMC are inadequate. The city attracted 27.9 million domestic guests in November, but only 342,800 guests joined the city’s river tours.

According to Bui Hoa An, deputy director of the Transport Department, HCMC has regional planning for passenger inland waterway ports, while the planning for the position, river route, scale, ship size and capacity of passenger inland waterway ports has yet to be determined.

In the future, the function of the Nha Rong – Khanh Hoi port will be converted to make the port a tourist destination with a modern wharf and terminal.

The Tourism Department is developing a plan for development of waterway tourism products for the 2022-2025 period, in which by 2025, the waterway tourist products will be exploited on the Saigon river routes, including Nha Be, Soai Rap and Long Tau, linking neighboring provinces such as Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Tien Giang, Long An, Ben Tre and the inner city canals with at least 10 waterway tourism programs.