Developing smart tourism is believed to be an inevitable trend in the ‘smokeless industry’ because recent years have seen an upward trend in the number of travellers who prefer independent travel than guided tours.

The Cau Vang (Golden Bridge) on the top of the Ba Na Hills has been very inviting to visitors from both home and abroad.

‘Smart tourism’ can be simply understood as a kind of tourism that applies information technology to regular tourism activities.

Previously, travel consumptions had been mainly paid through travel agencies. With the use of technology, travellers can now proactively search for information and arrange their trips, therefore freeing up more time for sightseeing and shopping. In addition, any problems can be solved quicker online.

In an effort to catch up with this trend, some destinations in Da Nang have built their own applications or applied technology to serve the increasing demand of tourists.

In particular, the Museum of Da Nang has recently launched an audio guide for tourists visiting the museum in Vietnamese, English, and French, and a database of tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

The audio guide can be accessed by smartphone using a Quick Response (QR) code.

Using their smartphones, the visitor only needs to have a free QR Code scanning app and access to the Internet.

QR codes are positioned on the labels of exhibits on display at the museum, hereby serving to improve visitor’s ability to quickly and easily pull up extended information about a total of 600 exhibits on display at the museum just by scanning QR codes with their own smartphones.

A QR code can hold even more videos, data, pictures, audio or combination of presentation media.

Since it opened to the public in early June 2018, the Cau Vang (Golden Bridge) on the top of the Ba Na Hills has been very inviting to visitors from both home and abroad thanks to its special design, and the pervasive influence and power of the Internet.

In particular, the UK’s The Guardian called the footbridge part of ‘a line of weird and wonderful structures around the world’. The Golden Bridge is among unusual bridges stretching from Iowa to India: ‘structures that are noteworthy as architectural statements in themselves, rather than accessories for an already popular location,’ it wrote on 30 July 2018.

Also, American Fox News said that the bridge has attracted tourists from all over the world because of its unique design that features two larger-than-life hands holding up a pedestrian pathway dressed in gold.

A representative from a travel agency specialising in exploiting South Korean tourists remarked more than 80% of young South Korean people have sought information on some of Da Nang’s popular tourist attractions such as Ba Na Hills and Rooster Cathedral through social networking sites and groups of travellers who visited this beautiful city.

Mrs Truong Thi Hong Hanh, Deputy Director of the municipal Tourism Department emphasised that her agency would focus on developing smart tourism, as well as promoting the application of new digital industrial technology, known as Industry 4.0, in managing tourism activities in the time ahead.

Importance will be attached to developing  product development strategies, and advertising local tourism products more professionally and effectively.