In order to develop the tourism industry as one of Da Nang’s spearhead economic sectors, the city has set a target of welcoming an annual average of between 8.9 and 9.35 million visitors by 2020. From 3 to 3.5 million of them will be foreigners.

International visitor at the Son Tra Night Market

According to the latest figures released by the municipal Department of Tourism, South Korean and Chinese tourists have taken the lead in the number of foreign visitors to the central coastal city. They are followed by tourists from Thailand, Japan, the USA, Malaysia, and Australia.

In previous years, the number of South Korean and Chinese visitors accounted for 85% of the city’s total foreign visitor arrivals to the city. So far this year, the number of visitors from the two markets has only made up 75% of the total.

Meanwhile, between January and August, the number of Thai, Japanese, Malaysian, Taiwanese and Canadian visitors to Da Nang recorded a sharp increase of 342.9%, 32.98%, 70%, 87% and 51% respectively as comparison with the same period last year.

During that period, the number of tourists from Singapore, France, India and Germany significantly jumped by 53.03%, 68.34%, 78.95% and 81.49% respectively against 2018.

However, representatives from some city-based travel agencies said tourism promotion activities have yet to be organised synchronously, so potential international guests have not yet accessed useful tourism-related information.

In addition, despite having been enhanced, the quality of human resources for the hospitality sector has yet to meet the actual needs of tourism businesses. The city has been facing a severe shortage of high-quality human resources in the tourism sector.

Mr Nguyen Quoc Ky, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Vietravel Tourism Company, highlighted the significance of the qualification of human resources in determining the quality of tourism products.

He added training programmes at universities and junior colleges across the city have yet to keep pace with the recent rapid growth of the tourism industry.

Most of local universities and junior colleges have mainly focused on providing only training programmes on tourism administration skills. Therefore, graduates from the tourism faculties of universities and junior colleges have a good background knowledge, but they lack experience, foreign language proficiency, and other soft skills.

The Deputy General Director of the city-based Viet Nam Tourism Joint Stock Company (Vitours), Mr Le Tan Thanh Tung, underlined the importance of exploiting visitors from ASEAN member countries because Viet Nam does not require visas from citizens of these countries.

Mr Tran Luc, the Deputy Director of the Da Nang branch of Saigontourits Travel Service Company, underscored the necessity of opening new non-stop air routes from the city to destinations worldwide to attract even more international visitors to the locality.

Mr Nguyen Dinh Hoang, Director of the Hoang Anh Viet Tourism Company, stressed the need for the city to develop more new and suitable tourism products to serve demand of shopping and entertainment of foreign tourists during their stay in the city. This, thereby, will encourage foreign visitors to extend their stay periods in the city, return later, and recommend Da Nang to others.

Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Tourism Nguyen Xuan Binh said apart from maintaining traditional markets like Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia and ASEAN member nations, the city would focus on expanding its tourism market into Western Europe, North America, Australia, India and Russia by opening new international air routes connecting with these destinations in the coming time.

“Top priority will be given to attracting both ordinary and high-end tourists, and developing new and special tourism products, with a focus on nighttime outdoor entertainment and shopping services” Mr Binh remarked.