From October through to April is the period considered to be Da Nang’s cruise ship season.  During the peak of the season, between January and March in previous years, the city normally welcomed 4 or 5 cruise ships per week, each carrying between 1,000 and 1,500 passengers.

However, the city has seen a dramatic decrease in the number of cruise ships, and therefore passengers, arriving over recent months.  In fact, the number of European cruise ships docking at the city’s Tien Sa Port during 2014 was much lower than that at Thua Thien-Hue Province’s Chan May Port. 

Cruise ship passengers arriving at the Tien Sa Port

According to the latest statistics released by the Travel Management Office of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, so far this year the city has received a total of 74,609 passengers from 72 cruise ship arrivals.  This represents a decrease against 2013 of over 25% in the volume of visitors, and 18 in cruise ship arrivals.

The reasons for the decrease are thought to be that many Chinese cruise ship passengers have cancelled tours to the city since China illegally placed its oil rig HD-981 in Viet Nam's waters.  In addition, the weather at sea has been bad recently, and there are often several storms at the end of the year.  The majority of European cruise ships arrive in Da Nang at the beginning of the year. 

In addition, cruise ships, especially those over 220m long, have found it very hard to dock at the city’s Tien Sa Port, and cruise ship passengers have worried about their safety as there are many container trucks departing and arriving at the port.  The city urgently needs to build a specialised wharf for cruise ships.  Meanwhile, many services at the port are expensive and no preferential policy has been issued to local travel agents to encourage them to attract more cruise ship passengers to the city.