Da Nang has undergone 26 years of construction and development. Aside from the city's remarkable socio-economic achievements, the local tourism industry has really created a miracle when Da Nang turns itself into one of the major tourist centres in the country and Southeast Asia with a growth rate of 25-30% for many years from a ‘low-lying area’ of tourism. This significantly contributes to launching a new take-off for tourism in the central coast region and Viet Nam as a whole.

A fireworks display at the DIFF 2019. Photo: KIM LIEN

In 2019, tourist arrivals in the central coastal city hit 8,692,421, of which, 3,522,928 were international visitors. The total tourism revenue reached VND30,973 billion.

Da Nang has a total of 35 international air routes with a frequency of 496 flights/week, and 10 domestic air routes with a frequency of 662 flights/week.

The whole city has 4,646 tour guides, 376 travel agencies, and 943 accommodation establishments providing 40,074 rooms in total.

Thus, it can be said that Da Nang has really become a new growth pole of Viet Nam's tourism industry, contributing nearly 20% of direct international visitors to the total nationwide.

Particular for Da Nang, the tourism industry has really become a spearhead economic sector with strong spillover effects, significantly contributing to the overall development of the city, and many industries, fields and residential communities.

The aforementioned results are mainly attributed to the city’s abundant tourism resource system; modern and synchronous infrastructure; complete and high-class service facilities; safe, civilised, friendly and hospitable environment; special care of local leaders; the determination of investors; and the dynamism of the business community.

It is also worth mentioning the role of events that have built Da Nang tourism brand such as Clipper Race 2015-2016, Asian Beach Games 2016, APEC Economic Leaders' Week 2017, Asia Golf Tourism Convention 2017, and especially Da Nang International Fireworks Festival (DIFF).

DIFF, which has been held continuously for many years, greatly contributes to attracting both domestic and foreign tourists to the city, creating the identity of the local tourism, and making Da Nang one of the leading event cities in Viet Nam as being twice honoured by the World Travel Awards as 'Asia's Leading Festival and Event Destination' in 2016 and 2022.

However, in 2020 and 2021, the tourism sector was one of the worst affected by the impacts of COVID-19. The complicated and prolonged developments of the pandemic made the city's tourism recovery even more difficult, especially the organisation of large-scale, long-term events like DIFF.

On the other hand, the rapid development of digital commerce, the change in tourist behavior and the impact of COVID-19 have fundamentally changed the tourism industry structure and the destination's ability to reach customers directly.

In this new structure, visitors have moved closer to final services. The size of the groups of tourists starts to get smaller, whilst the groups of solo travel and family travel have increased rapidly. Experience tourism, and tourism associated with destination events are on trend.

Therefore, the tourism business community in Da Nang underlines a must-do for the city to raise the level of the annual DIFF to make it a prominent event in the annual series of events, thereby enriching local tourism products and luring more visitors to the city.

According to Dr. Cao Tri Dung, Chairman of the Da Nang Tourism Association, to do this, Da Nang and the organising unit need to mobilise a lot of resources to be able to make organisation plan, prepare the technical infrastructure and service facilities, and quickly promote the event to tourists both at home and abroad.

He suggests that the city should propose the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to unify the list of national tourism events, with a focus on identifying DIFF into a series of annual events. This will help elevate the event and create favourable conditions for visitors to actively plan travel and attend events at destinations, including Da Nang.

Chairman Dung underlines a necessity for the city to build a fireworks product ecosystem that includes a full range of high-quality utility services to serve the needs of both domestic and foreign tourists and stimulate them to spend more on fireworks, catering, shopping and entertainment services.

He proposes the city to have a strategy to develop the Da Nang fireworks brand in the international arena, invest in the art of fireworks, and have a long-term master plan on participating teams, themes for each year, technology used, and organising time of the year.

“It is advisable to consider changing the time of the organisation of DIFF during the non-peak tourist seasons so that the destination can increase its exploitation capacity, hereby contributing to increasing the efficiency of the organisers and the community of tourism businesses in the city” he adds.

Reporting by THAO NHI - Translating by M.DUNG