Da Nang targets to make its tourism, especially maritime leisure tourism, an spearhead economic sector at national and international levels.

Illustrative image (Source: VNA)

The city aims to welcome 8.85 million visitors by 2020, including 2.45 million foreigners, earning 31.5 trillion VND (1.41 billion USD) from the tourism.

Apart from increasing the number of hotel rooms to 23,000 by 2020, a rise of 5,000 rooms against last year's figure, Da Nang will focus on furthering the development of its homestay services to meet increasing demand during peak travel seasons.

The city will develop competitive tourism products while enhancing its connectivity with the neighbouring provinces of Quang Nam and Thua Thien Hue, the south central region and other localities nationwide.

Da Nang will also build a continent of tourism workers that can satisfy standards set by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The Deputy Director of the municipal Tourism Department, Mr Tran Chi Cuong, said the locality is making every effort to complete policies supporting the sector and build a travel fund to garner more resources for local tourism promotion activities.

Da Nang is also offering incentives to investors in such local tourist sites as the Son Tra Peninsula, the Ngu Hanh Son cultural and historical park and the Hai Van Pass, waterway tourism and night entertainment centres, he said.

Deputy Director Cuong noted that the city encourages its units and localities to improve their service quality through ranking local tourist businesses and destinations.

Local authorities and enterprises will join efforts in organising cultural and arts activities for tourists, Cuong added.

Other focus is being on boosting the city's infrastructure development and its state management to create a healthy, safe and friendly tourism climate.

While maintaining traditional markets like Southeast Asia, Western Europe and Northern America, the city will pay more heed to Northeast Asia and expand its market into the Middle East, India, Russia and Eastern Europe.

To date, 83 tourism projects totalling more than 7.3 billion USD have been implemented in Da Nang, of which 20 have been invested by foreigners with a total capital of 1.28 billion USD.

Da Nang has received a number of international and domestic awards for its efforts, including the ASEAN Environmentally Sustainable City in 2011, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Law-Carbon Emission City in 2012 and one of APEC 20 Green-Clean-Beautiful Cities in 2013, and membership of the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities Programme in 2014.

(Source: VNA/ Da Nang Today)