In recent years, night tourism in Ho Chi Minh City has gradually become a highlight, attracting a large number of tourists with a series of diverse products. From river experiences to exploring culture and history at night, the market has recorded positive signals, but there is still much room for development.
Ho Chi Minh City has implemented many typical night tours such as yachts on the Saigon River, double-decker sightseeing buses, night sightseeing at the Zoo and Botanical Gardens, or tours to explore Cu Chi Tunnels. These products all recorded positive visitor numbers.
In addition, night street spaces such as Nguyen Hue pedestrian street or food streets are also always bustling, becoming familiar rendezvous points for people and tourists. After expanding administrative boundaries, the city's night tourism space continues to expand, creating more opportunities to develop new products.
After experiencing a yacht on the Saigon River, Ms. Thu Trang (Hanoi tourist) shared: "Traveling in the evening, I have a very different feeling, both cool and admiring the shimmering city. Art performances also add highlights to this trip.
Mr. An Son Lam - Director of Dong Duong Sailing Co., Ltd. said that the key factor is to build products that suit the needs of travel businesses and the tastes of tourists, especially in the nightlife culinary tourism segment. Riverside culinary tourism has become a highlight of Ho Chi Minh City for many years but needs to be elevated to be exploited more effectively.
River tourism in the city has developed very strongly in recent times, many high-quality yachts have been put into operation, contributing to raising the image and creating growth momentum for the entire industry" - Mr. Lam said.
According to records, the "When night falls" tour at Saigon Zoo and Botanical Gardens, implemented from March 2025 to date, has welcomed about 2,000 visitors. The program brings a different experience when visitors observe animal life in the natural environment at night. Similarly, the night tour themed "War Zone Moon" at Cu Chi Tunnels also creates an impression when recreating historical space under the moonlight.
According to the orientation of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, in 2026, the city will focus on developing night tourism associated with piloting public-private partnership mechanisms in the fields of culture and sports, such as visiting night museums or art performance programs.
The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Finance assessed that Ho Chi Minh City after arrangement has a natural area of 6,772.59 km2, a population size of 14,002,598 people, located in a prime location, the center of the ASEAN region, the gateway to international exchange. Every year, the city attracts a large number of international and domestic tourists to visit, shop, and experience with great potential and advantages in nighttime economic development.
The merger with Binh Duong and Ba Ria - Vung Tau opens up a large-scale urban - industrial - tourism - sea linkage space, creating favorable conditions for restructuring the growth model in the direction of more effectively exploiting the time factor, in which the night economy is an important component.
In the new context, the night economy is not only a supplementary service activity for tourism or urban entertainment but has become a part of the economic ecosystem of large urban areas, associated with labor structure, consumption, logistics, culture - creativity and marine tourism.
Expanding Ho Chi Minh City has conditions to form a multi-center, multi-functional nighttime economy model, overcoming the limitations of the individual nighttime economy approach by each locality in the past.
