2018 witnessed numerous remarkable achievements recorded by Da Nang’s tourism industry thanks to its outstanding efforts in successfully organising large-scale domestic and international events, and developing more attractive new tourism products as well in a bid to attract more visitors from both home and abroad.

During his recent interview with the DA NANG Newspaper, Director of the municipal Department of Tourism Ngo Quang Vinh (pictured) revealed plans to enhance the quality of local tourism products.

Last year, the city welcomed around 7.66 million visitors, an increase of 15.5% against the previous year.

Of this figure, the number of foreigners rose by 23.3% to hit 2.87 million, whilst domestic visitor arrivals went up by 11.2% to 4.78 million.

Thanks to this, the city’s tourism sector earned an estimated 24 trillion VND in revenue, up 23.3% against 2017.

International air passenger arrivals to the city in 2018 climbed by 48.7% against the previous year to reach about 2.35 million.

Likewise, the city hosted a total of 145,000 international passengers from around 100 cruise ship arrivals last year, up 66% against the previous year.

In 2020, Da Nang is expected to receive between 9 and 9.5 million visitors.

In regard to the city’s efforts in luring more visitors, tourism promotion programmes were successfully organised in such foreign tourist markets as Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong and China.

Last year also witnessed the opening of 5 nonstop services connecting Da Nang with new destinations all over the world, which brought the great benefits to the tourism industry, and the progress of the entire city at large.

Noticeably, the newly-opened non-stop service connecting Da Nang with Qatar’s Doha helps the central city connect with 150 business and leisure destinations in the Middle East, Western Europe, and North America, hereby boosting trade links between Vietnamese and international businesses.

Likewise, the hotel industry in the city has witnessed tremendous boom in recent years.

Da Nang now has 785 accommodation establishments providing a combined total of 35,625 rooms, an increase of 92 in the number of establishments and 6,835 in the volume of rooms against 2017.

The city has been striving to offer attractive new tourism products in a bid to attract more visitors from home and abroad over the past years. An impressive performance during the ‘A story of Ao dai’ at the Risemount Premier Resort Danang is pictured.

Furthermore, the municipal administration has given a nod to plans to develop more attractive tourism products across the city.

Notable amongst them are the Ngu Hanh Son District-located An Thuong Tourism Quarter, the Son Tra night market, a project to develop beach tourism services along the Nguyen Tat Thanh unique arch-shaped route over the 2018 – 2020 period, and the ‘A story of Ao dai’ held by the Risemount Premier Resort Danang.

Following last year’s great success in the local tourism industry, this year, the priority is being given to take more effective measures to enhance the quality of local tourism human resources and drastically handle the negative limitations of the so-called “zero dong” tours.

The municipal Department of Tourism has proposed the municipal government to issue a plan to expand Da Nang’s tourist market network over 2019 - 2021 period, and hire qualified consultants to determine the city’s the tourism development threshold.

It is also high time to carry out a tourism industry restructuring project in a bid to ensure its professionalism, modernity, sustainable development, and global integration.

Accordingly, importance should be attached to releasing a code of conduct applicable to tour guides operating in the city, appealing for more domestic and foreign investment to develop tourism on the west side of the city, fully tapping the great potential of river and sea tourism, and establishing Da Nang’s tourism representative offices in China and Europe in the coming time.