Hanoi, HCMC among top 100 city destinations list

The capital city was ranked 94th while the southern metropolis stood 90th in the first edition of Top 100 City Destinations Index 2021 compiled by Euromonitor International.

To compile the index, the firm researched over 110 cities across 86 markets. The cities were measured on six main pillars: tourism performance, economic and business performance, tourism policy and attractiveness, tourism infrastructure, health and safety and sustainability.

Among these six pillars, both Hanoi and HCMC performed worst in the sustainability pillar, which measures climate, pollution, over-tourism and UNESCO heritage sites.

Vietnam's two biggest cities got the highest rankings in the 'tourism infrastructure' pillar, which assessed city destinations based on lodging, transportation, entertainment, shopping and dining venues.

Hanoi and HCMC are home to many high-end hotels, homestay services and other entertainment venues.

Paris, known as the city of love, topped the index, followed by Dubai and Amsterdam.

The rest of the top 10 were dominated by European cities like Madrid, Rome, Berlin, London, Munich and Barcelona.

New York was the only non-European city to break into the top 10, standing in seventh position.

Other Asian cities did better than Vietnam in this index, with Tokyo (15th) topping the region, followed by Beijing (32nd), Seoul (35th), Bangkok (45th), Hong Kong (49th), Delhi (72nd) and Kuala Lumpur (74th).

After two years of border closures, Vietnam reopened its doors to foreign tourists last month and plans to resume regular international flights early next month.

HCMC has proposed the government welcomes back foreign tourists with valid vaccine passports from this month without mandating quarantine upon arrival.

In 2019, the year before the onset of the pandemic, HCMC received 8.6 million foreign arrivals, up 10 percent from a year ago while Hanoi welcomed 7.02 million, a 17 percent year-on-year increase.