Critical factors influencing international tourists' decisions to choose tours to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Ho Chi Minh City - Vietnam's major economic and cultural center, is witnessing a substantial transformation in the tourism industry through digital transformation. This is a crucial step to help the city recover quickly from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and lay a solid foundation for a future of sustainable development. Therefore, this study aims to explore the factors affecting international tourists' decision to choose Ho Chi Minh City as a destination. The study approaches the Pust-Pull theory, in which push motivation includes the following factors: Knowledge and discovery, entertainment and relaxation, family and friends, and financial conditions; pull motivation includes destination image and destination information. Pust-Pull factors simultaneously affect choosing a tourist destination in Ho Chi Minh City for international tourists. The study's method uses a convenient sampling survey design, including 422 international tourists in Ho Chi Minh City. Data are analyzed using statistical software SPSS 25.0 and SmartPLS 4.1.0.0, and research hypotheses are tested using PLS-SEM. The results show that push and five factors affect tourists' decision to choose a destination, all statistically significant at 5%. The study's unique contribution showed that knowledge discovery and financial conditions have the most substantial influence, while destination image is another factor that strongly influences the decision to choose Ho Chi Minh City as a destination. Finally, the authors proposed key recommendations for tourism businesses and stakeholders, which need to pay attention to digital transformation, a trend and a key factor determining tourism development to enhance appropriate policies to attract more international tourists to the city, contributing to sustainable economic development.