To become an international tourism and event centre, it is highly recommended that Da Nang should need a night market brand capable of attracting tourists to the city and make comebacks.

At the Helio night market, in addition to enjoying food, visitors can relax by enjoying nightly music performances. Photo: T.Y

Developing a night market space imbued with local cultural identity will make an important contribution to enhancing tourism experience and promoting the night-time economy. Da Nang's existing potential needs to be utilised and promoted to create unique highlights, woo more tourists to the city as well as pursued them to prolong their stay periods and make comeback trips.

Having been to many places around the world, Chairman of the Da Nang Tourism Association Cao Tri Dung said that, as a tourist city, Da Nang cannot lack a night market, because it is the missing piece, a real need of tourists, especially international ones who want more space to learn about indigenous culture and local cuisine.

For example, as just a small island but Taiwan (China) has many famous night markets, including Raohe, Ximending and Jiufen in New Taipei City or MiaoKou in Keelung City. These markets start bustling in the late afternoon and last until midnight.

According to Mr. Dung, effectively exploiting the strengths of local cuisine and culture has helped the night market become a typical tourism product in Taiwan (China).

Each stall not only sells products but also tells the story of the history of the dish and the land, helping visitors enjoy the flavours and deeply feel the beauty of the local culture. Cultural exchange activities at the night market are also important points that make tourists excited. Music performances, traditional dances or folk games have created a lively entertainment space where visitors can directly participate in them and experience relaxing shopping moments.

Besides, visitors also feel comfortable with the friendly, enthusiastic and professional sales style of local people.

Similarly, another night market model in Thailand that Da Nang can refer to is the Night Bazaar in Chiang Mai City. The market is famous for its hundreds of food stalls, handicrafts, clothes, accessories and jewelry. This diversity creates a significantly engaging shopping experience for visitors.

The Night Bazaar is methodically planned on a large space, creating favourable conditions for movement and shopping activities. The stalls are neatly arranged where visitors can enjoy local cuisine, participate in traditional cultural activities and enjoy art performances.

According to Mr. Cao Tri Dung, the success of Night Bazaar also comes from the promotion and marketing strategies developed by the Chiang Mai administration and tourism units that have schedules to bring visitors to this city.

“Night markets in Taiwan (China) or Thailand are large in scale, with rich, diverse and unique products. Da Nang can learn from their success by creating a similar night market model, focusing on product diversity, convenient shopping environment, and unique cultural experiences such as traditional musical instrument, folk dance or artistic performances to impress tourists. We hope that, in the near future, Da Nang will create a famous night market brand in the hearts of tourists.”, Mr. Dung said.

Recently, Da Nang put into operation the Bach Dang walking street or the nightlife travel experience on Nguyen Van Troi Pedestrian Bridge, adding more addresses in the journey to explore this beautiful city.

However, to enhance the efficiency of exploiting the night-time economy from the night market model, it is a must-do for Da Nang to properly grasp the diversified needs of tourists and local residents. This can be done through organizing surveys, doing market research and collecting feedback from customers as well as traders, tourism and service businesses.

This has been done by the management board of Helio night market in recent years, by diversifying services from dining and entertainment to creating space for customers to rest and relax. In particular, under the shimmering lights, 150 food stalls with Asian and European flavours attract a large number of diners.

According to advisor to the Tourism and Events Center of Vitraco Transport and Tourism Company Le Tan Thanh Tung, in addition to cuisine, fashion, and handicrafts, night markets in Da Nang need to create more space for cultural, artistic and entertainment activities in an effort to increase travel experience for visitors.

On the other hand, the city needs to build a long-term roadmap to ensure reasonable space allocation between booths, entertainment areas and encourage more travel companies to add night market trips to their tour packages.

These cited measures, if implemented effectively, will help the Da Nang night market segment become an attractive product, contributing to the development of the night-time economy, promoting consumption and extending visitors' stay in the city.

Reporting by TIEU YEN - Translating by A.THU, T.TUNG