Welcoming 3.5 million international visitors in 2019, the year immediately before the COVID- 19 outbreak, Da Nang ranked third place in Viet Nam's best destinations for international tourists, and the most ideal destination for beach-based tourism in this Southeast Asian country at that time.

The Golden Bridge at the Sun World Ba Na Hills tourist site is among the best places to visit in Da Nang.

With an area equal to half of the southern metropolis of Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang is a city naturally blessed with rivers, mountains and sea with very beautiful and attractive natural landscape, all of which are highly attractive to tourists near and far. Few cities in Viet Nam boast a tourism ecosystem as diverse as Da Nang.

Da Nang is also located between three world cultural heritages, namely Hue ancient capital, Hoi An ancient town and My Son sanctuary. To develop tourism industry, there are few localities in Viet Nam that have favourable conditions like Da Nang.

In recent years, Da Nang has paid great attention to developing tourism infrastructure. InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort is not only famous in Viet Nam, but it has also 4 times been honoured by the World Travel Association (WTA) as the most luxurious resort in the world. In 2017, it was chosen as the venue for the APEC summit and it has emerged as also a familiar rendezvous for billionaires in the world.

Dozens of world-famous hotel brands are present along the very long and beautiful coastline of Da Nang, along with world-class golf courses.

The Sun World Ba Na Hills tourist area was also honoured by WTA as the world's leading iconic tourist area, with the Golden Bridge that has swayed international media since its launch and this landmark has become a very attractive tourist magnet.

The Nui Than Tai Hot Spring Park and the Da Nang International Fireworks Festival are also impressive highlights for domestic and international tourists.

Da Nang also shows off potential for the progress of MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) tourism. Since the beginning of 2022 until now, the city has welcomed more than 70 MICE delegations with a combined total of more than 35,000 visitors.

It can be realised that the number of 35,000 MICE visitors that Da Nang received is not high, but it is a positive signal for the development of this high-income tourist segment in the city's tourism strategy.

Many major events and festivals have been held successfully in the city such as Routes Asia 2022, Da Nang Golf Tourism Festival and Street Carnival.

However, looking at the structure of international visitors to Da Nang, the proportion of high-spending visitors is still very small. Popular international tourists to Da Nang are still from its time-honoured traditional tourist source markets. The two largest source markets are S.Korea and China, both accounting for 70% of total international visitors, followed by Thailand, Japan and the US (accounting for about 15%).

In order to effectively tap the strengths of Da Nang tourism, raise the level of destinations and increase the average revenue of international visitors, the Da Nang tourism development strategy needs to be towards attracting travellers from the high-end, high-spending tourist markets. This is not the goal of Da Nang tourism alone, but also Viet Nam’s in general, and encouragingly, Da Nang has more favourable conditions to realize this ambition in comparison with other Viet Nam-wide localities.

So as to turn Da Nang into a destination for the luxury tourist market, Da Nang needs to address a number of important issues as follows.

Firstly, it is necessary to channeled more investment capital into the development of a number of high-class tourism infrastructure items such as a world-class marina, expanding the current Da Nang International Airport, with new modern passenger terminal, VIP terminal and aprons for private jets and helicopters.

A solution is needed to ensure that Da Nang, and Viet Nam at large, will have high-class tourist and medical helicopters because these are services that international luxury customers want during their stay at tourist destinations.

Secondly, it is a must-do to strongly develop the night-time economy, mainly tourism activities; develop many tourist spaces that can operate around the clock, set up a complex of entertainment, commerce and high-class services that can be built on land or reclaimed land like the model of Marina Bay Sands complex in Singapore.

It is also a good idea  to develop tourism services along the two banks of the iconic Han River in an approach that all spaces bordering the water must be without barriers to allow public access.

The building of a river walk stretching for many kilometers and many trees planted along both banks of the river must be taken into account. 

Thirdly, at the service level, it is necessary to design many services targeting international billionaires such as weddings, VIP birthdays, VVIP, high-class parties with dishes prepared by Michelin-star chefs.

Fourthly, in terms of urban environmental improvement, Da Nang needs to strongly develop public transport in the direction of green traffic with electric buses and taxis, and even trams instead of the messy traffic model that currently causes air pollution due to too many personal vehicles such as cars and motorbikes in circulation. 

Fifthly, it is highly recommended for the national government to significantly improve the tourist visa policy. Visa is the first and biggest bottleneck in Viet Nam in attracting international visitors.

Thailand grants visa exemptions for tourists from 68 countries, whilst Singapore with 157 countries. Thailand's visa exemption period before the COVID-19 pandemic was 30 days, and it has increased to 45 days at present.

Meanwhile, Viet Nam only exempts visas for tourists from 25 countries and its most common visa exemption is 15 days, much shorter than that granted to tourists elsewhere in ASEAN. This means that the country will find it more difficult to compete in attracting international tourists as compared to other destinations such as Thailand and Singapore.

Relaxed visa policies were urgently needed to increase tourist flows and facilitate the recovery of the tourism industry which is a major contributor to economic growth and employment.

Based on the aforementioned assessments, it is high time for Viet Nam to improve online Visa, Visa-On-Arrival both in terms of application conditions and technology platforms.

A small "country - city" like Singapore, with an area of about two-thirds of Da Nang and natural conditions that are not as diverse, attracted more international tourists than Viet Nam. In 2019, Singapore welcomed more than 19 million international visitors whereas only 18 million visitors came to Viet Nam, and earned a higher international tourism revenue than the whole country of Viet Nam. Mulling over this fact, Viet Nam needs to make big change in tourist attraction strategies.  

Reporting by Ph.D LUONG HOAI NAM, a member of Tourism Advisory Board (TAB) - Translating by A.THU