Immediately following the Lunar New Year, the HCMC Department of Culture and Sports designated Vung Tau Ward to host the 2026 HCMC Culture and Tourism Festival. The program featured a comprehensive series of maritime sports, encompassing sailing, paragliding, jet-skiing, SUP boarding, flyboarding, and motorized surfboarding. It successfully convened approximately 100 professional athletes to fiercely compete and deliver spectacular performances.
Nguyen Minh Thanh, a professional SUP boarder, remarked, “The Back Beach is an idyllic venue for staging tournaments and aquatic sports exhibitions. The expansive maritime space and the long, pristine beach make it highly captivating for surfers, SUP boarders, and sailors alike.”
The “open-water” topography, extensive flat beaches, and stable climate constitute significant advantages for organizing various marine sports. Notably, the Front Beach area, characterized by its consistent wave patterns, possesses the potential to become a premier training hub and host for sailing tournaments. Furthermore, Dinh River Bay could seamlessly transform into an annual meeting site for national sailing championships, SEA Games, and potentially even continental-level competitions.
Recently, the 16th HCMC International Women’s Cycling Tournament – BIWASE Cup 2026 also selected Vung Tau Ward as a pivotal destination along its racing itinerary. This decision was primarily driven by the ward’s remarkably picturesque landscapes and open spaces, offering cyclists an unparalleled opportunity to simultaneously compete and experience the scenic beauty.
Prior to this, Vung Tau Ward had also been chosen to host a plethora of other major cultural, sporting, and tourism events for HCMC. These included culinary festivals such as “Thousand Waves Delicacies,” “Flavors of the Blue Sea,” and “Ancient Tastes of Tet”; the Ao Dai Festival and contemporary fashion shows; the "Awakening the Dawn" marathon; yoga exhibitions; elaborate art performances and fireworks displays; the OCOP (One Commune One Product) week; and the kite festival.
These vibrant festivals and events have substantially contributed to forging a diversified cultural, artistic, and tourism environment. They empower the local community and tourists to collaboratively engage in recreational activities, performances, and exhibitions. This emphatically underscores the pioneering status of Vung Tau Ward within HCMC’s strategic vision for tourism development.
According to Director Hoang Duc Tan of the HCMC Aquatic Sports Center, the marine sports activities organized in Vung Tau Ward have actively promoted tourism and bolstered the city’s maritime economy. This location is also scheduled to foster high-performance beach sports for HCMC in the foreseeable future. He emphasized that Vung Tau Ward is an exceptionally suitable locality for hosting international tournaments and the Beach Games Festival in the coming years.
Meanwhile, Deputy Director Tran Thi Thu Hien of the HCMC Department of Culture and Sports asserted that owing to its abundant potential and inherent advantages, coupled with seamlessly integrated infrastructure and utilities, Vung Tau Ward is frequently selected to host major cultural, sporting, and tourism spectacles.
Notably, in recent times, the completion of the Thuy Van Park project, the square and Tam Thang Tower have further pushed Vung Tau Ward to the forefront of preferred venues for grand cultural, sporting, and tourism events. In addition, the ward possesses numerous advantageous potentials, including an extensive coastline, the Big Mountain and Small Mountain, as well as a rich, comprehensive system of historical relics.
These are precisely the pivotal elements that help position Vung Tau Ward as a definitive event destination. “In the upcoming period, Vung Tau Ward will continue to be selected as the primary venue for numerous cultural, sporting, and tourism activities within HCMC’s 2026 agenda, including the Ao Dai Festival and the ‘Awaking the Dawn 2026’ program,” informed Deputy Director Tran Thi Thu Hien.
Chairman Vu Hong Thuan of the Vung Tau Ward People’s Committee stated that the ward will strategically reorganize coastal spaces, effectively exploiting Thuy Van Square and nearby park complex as well as the pedestrian street. Concurrently, it will proactively develop nocturnal activities like night running, illuminated paragliding, glowing kayaking, and night surfing at the Front and Back Beaches.
In tandem with these efforts, the locality is accelerating digital transformation and cultivating a safe tourism environment through models like “Friendly Household Businesses” and “Citizens as Tourism Ambassadors.”
The Chairman emphasized that when infrastructure is effectively managed, positioning an event destination is not solely quantified by tourist footfall. An authentic destination intrinsically attracts visitors through internal capacity, proactive local authorities, enthusiastic resident participation, and positive reception.
