It was one of those nights when Asia’s travel glitterati dusted off their best suits, fixed their smiles and waited for the envelopes to open. When the spotlight turned to Vietnam, the applause wasn’t polite; it was thunderous.
Ho Chi Minh City, the city that never truly slows, has once again strutted onto the global stage with four gleaming trophies from the World Travel Awards 2025 ceremony in Hong Kong.
If the travel industry has its version of the Oscars, this was the big night minus the red carpet tantrums.
Four Wins and Plenty of Bragging Rights
According to the official announcement, the city took out:
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Asia’s Leading Business Travel Destination 2025 – for the fourth straight year.
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Asia’s Leading Festival & Event Destination 2025 – also four years running.
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Asia’s Leading City Tourist Board 2025 – a hat-trick for the Department of Tourism.
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Asia’s Leading Coastal City Break Destination 2025 – a debut victory for Vung Tau, now part of Ho Chi Minh City’s expanding orbit.
Four trophies, four distinct pillars of tourism business, culture, marketing, and leisure, all point to one truth: this city is firing on every cylinder.
A City That Refuses to Sit Still
Winning once can be luck. Winning four times in a row smells of intent.
Ho Chi Minh City, still affectionately called Saigon by many locals, has been busy reinventing itself, polishing its skyline, refining its tourism offering, and keeping its street food heritage alive amid all the glass towers.
It’s a metropolis that hums at three speeds: the constant chatter of commerce, the slow charm of colonial architecture, and the chaotic ballet of scooters that somehow avoid each other by instinct rather than logic.
In short, the energy makes jet-lagged travellers forget the hour and dive straight into a bowl of pho.
The Vung Tau Effect
Among this year’s headlines, the surprise name was Vung Tau, a seaside city folded under Ho Chi Minh City’s administrative wing in recent reforms.
Long a local favourite for its weekend waves and seafood feasts, Vung Tau now carries the title of Asia’s Leading Coastal City Break Destination.
It’s a recognition that gives Ho Chi Minh City something new: salt air and surf to complement its neon skyline. Together, they form a tourism brand that stretches from boardroom to beach towel.
The strategic move effectively gives the city two tempos corporate in the week, coastal by the weekend.
Numbers to Match the Noise
Awards are nice. Numbers, however, pay the bills.
Between January and September 2025, Ho Chi Minh City recorded 5.8 million international and 29 million domestic visitors, generating around VND 184.6 trillion in revenue. The year-end target of ten million international and fifty million domestic visitors now looks well within reach.
That’s not a tourism plan. That’s an economy in motion.
Behind the statistics lies something more subtle: a growing global affection for Vietnam’s southern hub as a place that blends modern efficiency with unmistakable character.
Vietnam’s Broader Triumph
Ho Chi Minh City didn’t celebrate alone. Vietnam, the host country in spirit if not in geography, walked away with two continental crowns of its own:
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Asia’s Leading Destination 2025 – its seventh title.
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Asia’s Leading Heritage Destination 2025 – its third.
Hanoi, Hoi An, Ninh Binh, Phong Nha-Ke Bang and Moc Chau collected honours, while Vietnam Airlines, VietJet Air and Bamboo Airways added aerial gloss to the national tally.
If anyone still considers Vietnam a “developing” tourism market, the WTA results suggest it has already arrived.
A Matter of Prestige – and Pressure
The World Travel Awards are not a beauty contest. They are a credibility test, recognising from peers and professionals that a destination has delivered consistency, service, and experience.
For Ho Chi Minh City, this credibility now comes with responsibility. Tourists expect polish, but they also crave authenticity. Balancing both is where many modern destinations stumble.
The city’s challenge will be to keep its cultural heart beating while meeting the global standards that awards demand.
In the words of Bui Thi Ngoc Hieu, Deputy Director of the Department of Tourism:
“Being continuously recognised by the international community at the 2025 World Travel Awards is a great honour and a powerful motivation for the city’s tourism sector to keep innovating and creating. Our goal is to position Ho Chi Minh City as a leading tourism hub in the Asia-Pacific region.”
Few would disagree, but most would add: the world will hold you to it.
From Riverbank to Runway
What sets Ho Chi Minh City apart isn’t simply numbers or infrastructure. It’s the way it fuses its contradictions.
French colonial villas share corners with glass-fronted malls. Traditional water-puppet shows sell out blocks from rooftop gin bars. And amid the honking chaos, a polite sense of order still somehow prevails.
It’s a place where street food is as much an art form as fine dining, and visitors can slip from temple courtyard to tech start-up within the same morning.
Little wonder business travellers keep returning, many leaving with the nagging suspicion they should have extended their stay.
The Long Game
Winning awards is the easy bit. Sustaining excellence is where the real work begins.
As competition in Asian tourism heats up from Bangkok’s nightlife to Seoul’s pop-culture pull, Ho Chi Minh City must protect its advantage: authenticity wrapped in ambition.
That means cleaner rivers, smarter transport, heritage preservation and a tourism workforce skilled enough to deliver international service without losing local warmth.
As the industry puts it, these are the “golden keys” to remaining the Bright Star of Asian Tourism.
Why the World Still Loves Saigon
Ultimately, it’s not the trophies that draw travellers but the feel of the place, the smell of coffee at dawn, the sound of a city waking up, the grins of street vendors who’ve seen it all before.
Ho Chi Minh City remains a paradox, part museum, part modern miracle and therein lies its charm.
You can add as many luxury hotels and convention centres as you like, but what keeps people coming back is that elusive, electric heartbeat that no award can measure.
A Word from the Old School
Traditionalists might roll their eyes at the digital fanfare surrounding travel awards. Yet even they would admit: this one feels earned.
For decades, Saigon has been reinventing itself without ever losing its soul. The neon may be brighter, the skyline higher, but the rhythm is the same, quick, proud, irrepressible.
That, in essence, is what Peter Needham would have called “the unteachable art of staying relevant.”
For the Record
For those keeping score or planning their next conference venue, the full list of winners can be found at worldtravelawards.com/winners/2025/asia.
Expect Ho Chi Minh City’s name to appear more than once.
By My Thanh Pham
BIO
My Thanh Pham has worn more travel hats than most luggage racks could hold. After taking a course in travel and tourism, she found herself deep in the business of arranging itineraries across South-East Asia, matching travellers to temples, beaches, and the occasional night train, with a knack for making the complicated look easy.
Not content with life behind the desk, she joined a Vietnamese airline, juggling reservations one day and the frontline bustle of the airport the next. It gave her a ringside seat to the theatre of travel: the missed flights, the joyous reunions, and the endless stories that airports never fail to serve.
These days, My Thanh has swapped ticket stubs for a writer’s keyboard at Global Travel Media. Her words carry the same steady hand she once brought to bookings, guiding readers through the rich, unpredictable world of travel.
