A Department of Tourism will be set up to improve management as the scale of operations in the industry continues to grow, the deputy chairwoman of HCM City's People's Committee, Nguyen Thi Hong, has said.

In the first half of this year, the city welcomed 1.9 million foreign visitors, up 5 per cent over the same period of 2012, accounting for 54 per cent of the total number of international visitors to Viet Nam.

HCM City has more than 1,800 hotels and motels, with 42,000 rooms with a one- to five-star ranking, and 29,000 businesses operating in the tourism sector.-VNS