Authorities in HCM City yesterday welcomed the first international visitors of the year at Tan Son Nhat International Airport.

Vice chairman of HCM City People's Committee, Nguyen Thi Thu (second from left) gave flowers to the first foreign visitors to the city at Tan Son Nhat Airport on January 1, 2017. Photo by Congan TPHCM

The eight were randomly chosen from Vietnam Airlines flight VN30 from Germany and Thai Airways flight TG550 from the UK.

Representatives from the city and local tourism department presented gifts to the lucky visitors and Vietnam Airlines also gave gifts and best wishes for the New Year to all other passengers on the two flights.

 Director of HCM City's Department of Tourism, Bui Ta Hoang Vu, welcome visitor Bart Verheyen from England at Tan Son Nhat Airport on January 1, 2017.

Renate Schiller and Stefan Schiller from Germany were among the lucky visitors. They said it was a nice surprise.

This was the first of a series of tourism promoting events held by the city. Some other important tourism events which will be organised in 2017 in HCM City include an Ao Dai Festival, an international tourism fair, an international food festival and a lighting festival.

Director of HCM City's Department of Tourism, Bui Ta Hoang Vu said, "We expect to welcome 5.6 million foreign visitors this year, up 10% on last year."

"We want tourism to be one of three key sectors of the city by the end of this year, with total revenue of VND 112 trillion (USD5.03 billion)."