According to the EU-funded programme forenvironmentally and socially responsible tourism capacity development,close to 79.11 percent of international tourists arrived in Da Nang forthe first time and more than 60 percent are likely to return.
The number of foreign visitors to the city in the first few months ofthe year was stable and grew by 10 percent thanks to the launch of newair routes from the Republic of Korea, Japan, China and Thailand, saidChairman of the Da Nang Tourism Association Huynh Tan Vinh.
Da Nang was listed among the top 10 most attractive destinations inAsia in 2013 and 2014 by readers of Smart Travel Asia, a leadingregional online travel magazine. It also took the top spot in the onlinetravel review site TripAdvisor’s “Destinations on the Rise in 2015”awards, and ranked sixth of the 10 most improved cities globally in 2015by Canada’s Richest magazine.
Under the city’stourism development orientations through 2020, the city will continuepromoting its image in traditional markets such as Western Europe,Northern America and Eastern Europe while expanding to others in MiddleEastern countries and India.
The city expects towelcome more visitors from Hanoi, Hai Phong, Quang Ninh and Ho Chi MinhCity, along with Mekong Delta and Central Highland localities.
The tourism sector has put forth measures to draw foreign visitors,particularly from the Republic of Korea, Japan and Russia, whileconsulting the municipal People’s Committee to issue a tourism promotionplan between 2016 and 2020, promote tourism events and launchadditional international air routes to the city.
Themunicipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has built andcarried out tourism promotion programmes of Da Nang, Thua Thien-Hue andQuang Nam in the Republic of Korea.
The city isexpected to exempt Value-Added Tax (VAT) for tourists or arrange taxrefund sites at airports while designing special products for foreignvisitors.
Director of the municipal Department ofCulture, Sports and Tourism Ngo Quang Vinh said Da Nang aims to buildthe city into a tourism centre for visitors in the central and CentralHighland regions.
More air routes to Da Nang will belaunched while coordination with central localities to buildhigh-quality tourism products will be strengthened, he added.
The city has also devised policies to support businesses to developvarious forms of tourism such as shopping, building amusement parks andorganising cuisine events.
Da Nang welcomed over 3.8million tourists and grossed 9.8 trillion VND in revenue last year.This year, the city hopes to greet more than 4.43 million vacationersand earn 11.8 trillion VND (540 million USD).
It hasfavourable natural conditions, international airports and seaports todevelop tourism. The average growth of tourism from 2011-2015 wasestimated at 20.14 percent – from 2.4 million arrivals in 2011 to nearly3.9 million in 2014.
The city is home to 74 tourism investment projects worth nearly 8.1 million USD.
So far, the city has 23 air travel routes, including 9 direct and 14 chartered.-VNA