Recent years have seen an upward trend in the number of Vietnamese holidaymakers using the Internet, especially online travel websites, to book directly with their favourite airlines, hotels or other services.

Many domestic and foreign travel agencies focusing on publicising their services via IT apps

Likewise, many tourism businesses have also made full use of the Internet’s benefits to widely publicise their services.

Ms Le Thu Ha, 35, a resident in Ngu Hanh Son District’s My An Ward, said she usually searches out travel options that best meet her needs on prestigious online travel websites before travelling to domestic and foreign destinations, instead of attending in person to book tours right at travel agencies. 

The great benefits of the Internet, indeed, help holidaymakers like Ms Ha save their time and travel costs.

It is widely thought that booking online comes handy as it could be done anywhere anytime, be it at the comfort of your couch, or at work; through computers, tablets or smart phones in a very simple, and easy manner.

Holidaymakers can easily create a package from scratch depending on their dates, budgets, and personal preferences.  In addition, they easily find cheap flights, hotel booking, car rental, travel insurance, or even ready tailored packages to booking tours, museum, and concert tickets. 

Moreover, thanks to booking online, holidaymakers have all available options combined in one place, where they can compare prices, and availability, and finally pick what’s more affordable, and convenient for them, without having to check a bazillion of websites, and getting into a dilemma.

Ms Tran Thanh Loan, the owner of the Barney’s Danang Backpackers Hostel on Tran Hung Dao Street, said many foreigners have been used to booking their trips online on globally renowned booking platforms such as Agoda, Tripadvisor and Booking.com. 

Ms Loan and other accommodation providers are fully aware of promoting interaction with their clients on these online travel sites, thereby widely publicising their products in a convenient and money-saving manner.

In the ongoing fourth industrial revolution (Industry 4.0), Mr Dinh Van Loc, the Director of the Viet Da Travel, underlined a must-do to offer free-of-charge training courses on e-commerce for the city’s tourism businesses.

To date, the Da Nang tourism website at https://tourism.danang.vn/ and the Danang FantasiCity fanpage – the official channel of Da Nang’s tourism sector on Facebook have proved effective.

Last year, the municipal Tourism Department and the city-based Gola Software company have jointly debuted the next version of the ‘Danang FantastiCity Ver 1.0’ mobile application.  Compared with the old version, the new one called ‘Danang FantastiCity Ver 2.0’ adds new outstanding features.  In detail, the ‘Event countdown’ gathers all information about event headings, time and detailed schedules of each and every happening in the city.  In particular, the ‘E-coupon’ is a promotion code used on mobile devices for hassle-free service order.  Users can save information online on their martphones, and then prompt their phones to make calls, send emails and texts to any businesses to make their orders.

Interestingly, developed by a start-up business in the city, a chatbot on smart travel, the first of its kind in Viet Nam, was launched in November 2017 to serve visitors arriving in the city.

The Danang FantasiCity chatbot is attached to the Danang FantasiCity fanpage.  Accessing it simply involves typing ‘Danang FantasiCity’ on Facebook or visiting https://visitdanang.com.vn/vi/.  Users can also quickly scan the code at tourist centres of popular destinations without downloading it.