Da Nang strives to lure more tourists during unseasonal months

The central city of Da Nang has conducted a string of activities in order to attract more visitors during the off season when the number of tourists drops by half that in summer months.

Tran Chi Cuong, Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said apart from road shows in Japan, his agency has organised familiarisation trips for foreign travel and press agencies to study the local tourism market.

To lure more holiday-makers between September and the end of this year, many local tour operators and service suppliers have also launched attractive promotion packages with reduced prices on tickets, tours, accommodations and services.

Do Dung, Deputy Head of the management board of the Ngu Hanh Son tourism site, said along with cultural and spiritual advantages, the reduction of ticket prices and other promotion activities would help draw more arrivals to the site, especially during the stormy season.

Tourism insiders suggested municipal authorities encourage investments in building and upgrading indoor entertainment establishments such as the city’s opera house and museums.

Da Nang should bid to host international events - especially art programmes, organise larger-scale traditional art performances and offer typical tourism products in an effort to attract more foreign visitors, they said.

Under the city’s tourism development plan by 2020 with a vision towards 2030, Da Nang aims to become a tourism centre of the region, focusing on high-end products with a combination of leisure and sports and entertainment activities.

Son Tra Ocean Park, for example, is being built at a cost of 300 million USD and is expected to be operational in 2017.

The Tien Sa port and a number of museums are being upgraded while the Son Tra peninsula is projected to become a national tourism site in the near future.

Cuong said along with products that connect localities at home and abroad, Da Nang is striving to improve the quality of services with special heed paid to personnel training, beautiful and safe tourism environments and public-awareness.

Statistics showed that the central city has welcomed nearly 3.8 million visitors this year so far, earning 10.2 trillion VND (459 million USD), up 23.6 percent and 30.2 percent year-on-year, respectively.

Of the figure, the number of international tourists stood at 860,000, up 31.8 percent. The number of domestic arrivals was nearly 2.9 million, a rise of 21.3 percent over the same period last year.