Attracting international tourists is one of the important tasks to promote tourism development and increase economic value. Therefore, the locality is focusing all resources on implementing goals and plans with the expectation of raising the position and image of the Da Nang tourism in potential tourist source markets such as Japan and Australia.

Outdoor park area at a resort invested by a Japanese enterprise in Da Nang. Photo: Da Nang Mikazuki Japanese Resorts & Spa

According to the Da Nang Statistics Office, in the first 7 months of 2024, international visitors to Da Nang reached more than 2.4 million, an increase of more than 34% from the same period in 2023, reaching 96% of the year’s estimate.

In the structure of international tourists to Da Nang, tourists from the Japanese and Australian markets are playing an important role in promoting the city's economy (in the top 10 international visitor markets for the city since 2015). In the first 7 months of 2024 alone, the number Japanese tourists reached 83,948, accounting for 3.5% of the total international tourist arrivals to Da Nang.

Up to now, there have been direct flights with a frequency of 7 flights/week connecting Da Nang with some airports in Japan such as Narita, Haneda and Osaka. Fully aware of this potential, some travel companies in Da Nang that specialise in the Japanese tourist source market have launched charter flights from Nagoya, Akita, Fukushima to this central Vietnamese city, thereby contributing to increasing the number of visitors to the city.

Similarly, Australia is also one of the potential international tourist markets that the city's tourism industry is targeting. Ms. Ly Khuyen, an international student in Australia, said that tourism products and services in Da Nang are suitable for the tastes of Australian tourists thanks to the climate, nature and proximity to world cultural heritages such as Hoi An, Hue, along with tours with many interesting travel experiences.

In reality, Australian tourists often travel from June to September and choose destinations such as Viet Nam and neighbouring countries, and they often stay longer than those from other foreign markets, with about 8-10 days on average.

Although Australia is a market with great potential for development, according to tourism businesses, promoting tourism products is still facing many difficulties such as Australians rarely follow mass tours but prefer tours designed according to the tastes of certain groups.

According to Mai Thi Thanh Hai, the Deputy Director of the Tourism Promotion Centre, to attract visitors from these cited markets, the city’s tourism industry has developed a promotion and investment plan in each specific market.

For example, for the Japanese market, the city's tourism industry issues monthly E-newsletters (online marketing) to update tourism information sent to partners; coordinates with airlines and airports to welcome charter and direct flights; strengthens promotion to restore flights from Japanese destinations to Da Nang; welcomes Japanese famtrip and presstrip groups that want to survey tourism products and services in Da Nang, develops high-quality Japanese markets to Da Nang in the form of independent travel, luxury travel, school travel, and health travel; coordinates with travel businesses to build programmes and products to stimulate demand for high-quality customer segments; participates in the Tourism EXPO Japan 2024 in Tokyo in September; welcomes a Japanese school famtrip group in November.

With a regard to the Australian market, the city will negotiate with VietJet Air to promote the opening of flights from major Australian cities to Da Nang, target customer segments such as middle-aged, high-income travelers who love to travel, cultural tourists, couples on vacation, M.I.C.E. (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) tourism, golf and cruise tourism.

The city is working hard to create information videos highlighting Da Nang tourism services and tourist attractions and develop specific communication strategies based on the needs and tastes of each customer market as well as build tourism products of Da Nang in combination with other cultural and historical destinations such as Thua Thien- Hue and Hoi An in neighbouring Quang Nam Province.

In particular, heed will be paid to innovating the Da Nang tourism website, developing campaigns by theme and promoting the products of sea and island tourism, cultural - historical tourism and eco-tourism linked with the community.

Reporting by HANH ANH - Translating by A.THU, V.DUNG