Over recent years, Da Nang has seen a significant increase in the number of tourists arriving from China and Japan, and especially from South Korea.  In particular, the city welcomed 107,008 South Korean visitors in 2014.

Da Nang has a number of domestic travel agencies which have been granted business licences for accepting South Korean visitors to the city.  However, international travel agencies and foreign tour guides are operating in the city, and some have been found without any legal registration licences.  This practice has brought the risk of negatively impacting the city’s tourism sector.

South Korean visitors at Da Nang International Airport

In 2014 the municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism imposed fines totalling 97.7 million VND on 6 cases of violating international travel services rules, up by 61.3 million VND against 2013.  The violators were international travel agencies and South Korean tour guides operating illegally in the city, along with foreign visitors not carrying their passports with them at all times.

In the first half of this year, a total of 46 million VND was imposed on another 4 travel agencies and 2 South Korean tour guides in the city.  In October, another 6 South Korean people were found operating businesses in the locality without any legal registration licences.  Their names have already been submitted to the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security to expel them from Viet Nam.