Da Nang Aims to Become Continental Tourist City

Da Nang is known as a tourism star in the Central Coast, the Central Highlands and the whole country. Promoting its advantages in natural and human resources, the city is making efforts to realize the goal of becoming a continental tourism city. To learn more about this approach, our reporter has an exclusive interview with Ms. Nguyen Thi Hoai An, Deputy Director of the Department of Tourism, Da Nang City.

My Khe Beach, Da Nang is recognized by Forbes, a leading American economic magazine, as one of the Top 6 most alluring beaches globally

Da Nang tourism is assessed to have recovered and grown significantly in the wake of numerous difficulties. Could you please introduce some remarkable results?

In the first six months of 2024, tourism continued to grow strongly to be a bright spot in the city's economic development picture. Many events, festivals, and tourism products and services were continuously introduced to create a vibrant and fresh atmosphere that was seductive to tourists. In the first five months, hotel-staying tourists totaled more than 3.78 million, up 22% year on year, including over 1.1 million international tourist arrivals, up nearly 27%, and above 2.28 million domestic visitors, up over 20%. Accommodation, food, and travel revenue was estimated at more than VND13 trillion, up over 28%, of which accommodation and travel revenue accounted for more than VND6.3 trillion, up 47%.

Tourism communication and promotion has been actively carried out to entice domestic and international MICE tourists to Da Nang, featured by the visits by world-renowned billionaire Bill Gates and legendary tennis player Roger Federer. These events brought recognition values, elevated the position of Da Nang destination and increased media effects and tourism images to woo more international visitors to the city, especially upmarket customers. Many tourism stimulus programs have been successfully organized with positive effects, including the Da Nang International Fireworks Festival 2024, the Asian Film Festival, and 13th Southeast Asian Student Sports Festival 2024. The city also participated in the SATTE India Fair, hosted a discussion program on “Solutions to attract Indonesian tourists to Da Nang and open flights from Indonesia”, welcomed a famtrip delegation of 35 Indonesian travel companies to survey tourism products and services in Da Nang, attended Da Nang at major tourism events like the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Festival and the VITM Hanoi. The city regularly upgraded tourist areas and attractions and supplemented regular services for Sun World Ba Na Hills and Than Tai Mount Hot Springs Park among other places of interest.

To entice more tourists, what products is the Da Nang tourism sector focusing on developing?

Da Nang is always proud to be the most attractive and sought-after tourist destination by tourists. In recent years, the city has constantly focused on carrying out creative solutions and attracting investors to create premium tourism products. The city plans to introduce many new, unique tourism products in the near future to refresh its destinations, open 5-star hotels and resorts and introduce new activities and services in some high-end resorts.

At the same time, tourism product will be developed according to three groups: The group of distinctive products comprises of beach tourism and high-end resorts, associated second-home property; urban tourism associated with shopping, entertainment, M.I.C.E tourism, golf, international events and festivals; cultural and historical tourism; and ecotourism. Main products consist of night tourism, waterway tourism, culinary tourism, community tourism and rural agricultural tourism. Complementary products embrace medical tourism and health care, wedding travel, and educational tourism. The tourism sector strives to achieve "high quality" standards in all types of tourist products and services and gives priority to developing high-end and ultra-luxury product and service lines.

Sun World Ba Na Hills 

How has the tourism sector worked with tourism communication and promotion?

Before challenging fluctuations in domestic and world tourism markets as well as other objective factors, the city's tourism sector has actively adapted, researched and adopted many solutions on tourism communications and promotion, with innovative contents and methods. It will focus on promoting advantageous Da Nang tourism products like golf tourism, MICE tourism, wedding tourism, beach tourism, luxury resorts, culinary tourism, major events, festivals, and night economy.

At the same time, the sector has stepped up Da Nang tourism promotion on online travel platforms, targeting key, potential international markets like Traveloka, Klook, Kkday and Fayfay.com. While developing VR360 virtual reality tourism application "One touch to Da Nang", rejuvenating the message of video clips and short videos of Da Nang tourism promotion themed “Enjoy Danang” for specialized products like cuisines, destinations, entertainment, festivals and events, the sector has collaborated with singers and musicians to produce music videos of Da Nang tourism to appeal and touch people, tourists, and social network users. Besides, each festival will be considered a typical product of the city like the Da Nang International Fireworks Festival - DIFF, the Enjoy Da Nang Festival, the Golf Tourism Festival, the New Year Festival, international cultural exchange festivals and unique traditional festivals of Da Nang together with many different tourism activities, programs and events spread throughout the year.

Especially, for each project, scheme and plan for tourism development and product and service development, relevant agencies will conduct investigations, surveys and polls into tourism businesses and tourists. Thus, they can grasp trends, launch effective communication and promotion solutions to attract tourists, improve service quality, and enhance tourist experiences. This is scientific, practicable research. So, we will continue to apply it to advise on planning Da Nang tourism development policies in the coming time.

World-renowned tourist cities attract tourists by offering many experiences in exploring nature and local culture, providing a diverse service infrastructure system and meeting all entertainment and recreation needs. In Vietnam, Da Nang holds the advantage to pursue this approach to realize the aspiration of becoming a continental tourism city.

Thank you so much!

By Hoang Lam, Vietnam Business Forum