Westlife concert forecast to 'create waves' for Ho Chi Minh City tourism

The president of travel platform Traveloka predicts that the Westlife concert in November in Ho Chi Minh City will continue to create waves for the music tourism trend.

President of Southeast Asia's leading online travel platform Traveloka, Mr. Caesar Indra, commented that tourism is associated with events and music nights. is one of three trends shaping the Vietnamese tourism market in 2024.

Following the impact of Blackpink's concert in Hanoi at the end of July, Westlife's concert taking place on November 21-22 in Ho Chi Minh City is expected to "create a strong wave for Ho Chi Minh City tourism". According to Mr. Indra, event tourism brings great opportunities to the tourism industry, attracting a large number of young tourists. The closer the event date is, the higher the number of customers booking services through the platform.

4 members of the band Westlife. Photo: sandtontimes. — 4 members of the band Westlife. Photo: *sandtontimes.*

Mr. Le Truong Hien Hoa, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism, said that the city is measuring the number of visitors and revenue from accommodation, aviation, and travel services at the time of the Westlife concert. Mr. Hoa commented that the target group of tourists interested in this concert is mainly the 9X and 8X generations. Unlike the group of visitors interested in Blackpink's concert, the majority are Millennials and Gen Z.

Regarding Westlife's concert, the event's ticket sales portal opened at 9am on September 26. According to the organizers, after 30 minutes, about 30% of the tickets were sold. Data on the Ticketbox website recorded that at 12pm, tickets from 850,000 VND to the highest price of 4 million VND were all sold out, only the 3.1 million VND category still had tickets left.

"The revenue from the Westlife concert may be as high as the concert in Hanoi last July, but it will create a good effect on tourism in Ho Chi Minh City in the last months of the year," Mr. Hoa commented.

The Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Tourism said that event tourism is one of the seven pillars of the city's tourism development. From mid-November to the end of the year is the peak of events, "event after event". This is also the time when the city's tourism revenue reaches its peak. Not only the Westlife music night, the city's tourism revenue this time also comes from many other events such as sports and culture, Mr. Hoa said.

In 2024, Ho Chi Minh City will continue to develop event tourism. The city will combine music, sports, and cultural events into a common event calendar to notify travel companies and promote communication.

In September, Ho Chi Minh City received the award "Asia's Leading Festival - Event Destination" from the World Travel Awards 2023. The award also highly appreciated Ho Chi Minh City's potential when it fully converges the elements to explode, becoming one of the venues for organizing major international events.

During the two nights of BlackPink's concert, the total number of tourists to Hanoi was about 170,000, contributing to tourism revenue of more than 600 billion VND. The number of air tickets booked to Hanoi at that time increased 10 times, according to estimates from the Hanoi Department of Tourism.

Bich Phuong

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