In 2025, Da Nang’s tourism industry sets a target to attract more than 10.5 million overnight stays, up 6% compared to 2024. Of this figure, the number of international visitors is estimated to reach 4.3 million, an increase of 11%, whilst that of domestic visitors is likely to be more than 6.2 million. To achieve this goal, the city's tourism industry has developed promotional plans and strategies in key tourist markets from the beginning of the year.

South Korean partners meeting and connecting with local businesses at a MICE tourism event in Da Nang. Photo: THU HA

Diversifying tourism promotion activities

The city's tourism industry has conducted many tourism promotion activities in 2024, bringing many positive results. In particular, the city's tourism industry coordinates with tourism associations and businesses to promote Da Nang tourism at many fairs, as well as searches for customers, and connects partners in such foreign markets as India, Taiwan (China), Japan, South Korea, Malaysia and Thailand.

In addition, the industry organises tourism stimulus programmes with many attractive products to woo more domestic and foreign tourists, including a programme to attract South Korean tourists to return to Da Nang.

Director of the municipal Department of Tourism Truong Thi Hong Hanh said that domestic tourism is still the city’s main market, accounting for 63.3% of the local tourist markets. Domestic tourists to Da Nang mainly come from Ha Noi, Ho Chi Minh City, northern provinces, the Central Highlands, the Mekong Delta, etc. The peak time for domestic tourism is mainly during the summer holiday from June to August, public holidays (April 30, May 1, September 2, New Year's Day) and weekends.

Compared to 2019, the number of South Korean, Chinese, Thai and Japanese visitors to Da Nang significantly decreases. In particular, the city sees an 8.5% decline in the number of South Korean tourists, and 13.6% in the number of Chinese tourists.

However, the city witnesses the positive growth of some new tourist markets such as Taiwan (China) with 8.1%, India 4.2%, Australia 1.1%, and Russia 1.4%.

This fact shows the tourists’ shifting trend in travelling and also clearly demonstrates the effectiveness of the policy of diversifying the international visitor market with efforts to promote, seek and expand the market, restore and develop direct international flights, and strengthen the organisation of festivals and events in order to maintain and increase the number of visitors to Da Nang.

Enhancing local cultural experiences

To attract visitors to Da Nang in the coming time, General Director of the Viet An Group Nguyen Thanh Tam stressed the need for the city's tourism industry and businesses to promote communication about tourism destinations on digital platforms to lure more domestic and foreign visitors.

Top priority should be given to creating unique tourism products and tours; increasing local cultural experiences for visitors, especially foreigners; providing financial support packages; organising skills training for small businesses in the tourism industry; having training plans to develop human resources; and investing in transport infrastructure and utility services in a bid to enhance the visitors’ experience, he added.

“It is necessary for tourism businesses to invest in technology, and innovate products and services to meet market demand” he emphasised.

According to Huynh Thi Huong Lan, Deputy Director in charge of the Da Nang Tourism Promotion Centre, it is forecasted that tourism communication trends in 2025 will focus on social networks and the application of AI technology (GPT chat) to search for destination information; Metaverse and virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) for a more realistic experience in promoting destinations; and the influence of celebrities (KOLs), content creators (Tiktoker), events, cultural festivals, and music and entertainment programmes to promote tourism. These trends will help customers easily search and choose destinations that suit their personal needs.

As for the structure of the tourist market to Da Nang in 2025, the domestic tourist market will account for 60.2% and the international tourist market will make up 39.8%.

Ms. Huynh Thi Huong Lan, therefore, underlined a must-do for the city’s tourism industry to have a tourism communication plan for 2025 with the aim of effectively implementing communication activities, promoting tourist attractions and continuing to affirm Da Nang’s position as Asia’s leading event and festival destination with a focus on key product groups such as festival and event tourism; beach resort tourism; MICE tourism; culinary tourism; nighttime tourism; eco-tourism; and community-based cultural tourism.

She also undertook the necessity to advertise the image of Da Nang as a safe, friendly, hospitable, sustainable, and high-quality destination.

The city's tourism industry continues to promote tourism on social networks suitable for markets such as Facebook, Naver, Naver Blog (South Korea); Douyin and Xiaohongshu channels (China); and Instagram (India).

The city will also pay a heed to invite famous domestic and international KOLs to promote Da Nang tourism, and at the same time, update new features on the city’s Tourism Information Portal, and synchronise the new interface on mobile devices and the Danang Fantasticity application.

Importance will be attached to integrating information with the Culinary Digital Map, adding separate sections on MICE tourism, culinary tourism, health tourism, wedding tourism, golf tourism, etc.; developing VR360 maps; upgrading AI-integrated tourism chatbots according to local information characteristics; and linking with tourism businesses, domestic and international airlines, and online booking sites (Booking.com, agoda, Traveloka) to create tourism campaigns and preferential travel packages for each tourist market.

Reporting by THU HA - Translating by MAI DUNG