More recently, Da Nang has emgered as an attractivedestination for both domestic and international tourists.

The Cau Vang (Golden Bridge) on the top of Da Nang's Ba Na Hills

By the end of 2018, Da Nang is likely to have welcomed a total of about 7.66 million visitors, up 15.5% compared with the same period last year. Of this figure, the number of foreigners is expected to increase by 23.3% to have hit 2.87 million, whilst domestic visitor arrivals are likely to go up by 11.2% to 4.79 million.

Thanks to this, the city’s tourism sector is predicted to have earned an estimated 24,060 billion VND in revenue, a 23.3% increase against last year.

However, Ms Truong Thi Hong Hanh, Deputy Director of the municipal Tourism Department, remarked although the tourism sector has seen a rapid growth over recent years, there have been some certain shortcomings in the performance of this sector.

In particular, applicants for tourism jobs in the city have yet to meet the requirements of recruiters.

Also, the city is facing a shortage of new and special tourism products, and tourism support services. Hence, the city finds it very hard to encourage domestic and foreign tourists to extend their stay periods and their spending here as well.

In attempting to enhance the quality of tourism services, the city has made greater efforts to organise annual exciting cultural programmes, namely Beach Tourism Season, Da Nang - Summer Rendezvous and Da Nang International Firework Festival.

In addition, the city has successfully hosted an international discussion about fostering the development of cruise-based tourism, and organised a photo contest entitled ‘Da Nang FantastiCity’.

Heed has been paid to using new technologies to advertise images of the city’s tourism to domestic and international visitors. Moreover, special attention has been paid on organising more training courses on taxation-related information and documents for local travel agencies and tourism service providers.

In August, municipal People’s Committee Vice Chairman Dang Viet Dung chaired a meeting with representatives from tourism businesses operating in the city. The intention was to listen to and sort out any difficulties facing them, thereby helping them operate more effectively.

Mr Nguyen Van Tai, Deputy Director of the city branch of the Ben Thanh Tourist Services Joint Stock Company, highlighted the importance of creating more exciting sports activities such as climbing, golfing, roller coaster, fishing,  diving and surfing.

He also underscored the importance of developing more types of tourism in the city such as cultural, historical, festival, river and handicraft village tourism.

Director of the Viet Da Travel Dinh Van Loc stressed the need for the city to boost the regional links and development in a bid to effectively advertise the images and tourism products of the city to visitors.

“More public toilets should be placed at tourist and bathing areas, and major streets, whilst the harassment of tourists should be resolved completely”, Mr Loc remarked.

The city has set a target to welcome 8.19 million visitors, including 3.19 million foreigners and 5 million domestic visitors, by 2019.

In order to realise this goal, the municipal tourism industry will continue perfecting its master plan by 2025 with a vision towards 2030, and its project on preferential policies to boost tourism cooperation between Da Nang, Thua Thien-Hue Province and Quang Nam Province.

Special attention will be paid to providing necessary information for investors, and cooperating with relevant local agencies to develop community and eco-tourism in Tho Quang and Man Thai wards in Son Tra District. A project for managing and developing tourism services on Nguyen Tat Thanh over the 2018-2020 period will be also executed.