As a gateway to Vietnam’s central region and home to multiple beautiful beaches and tourist destinations, Danang is increasingly becoming attractive to local and foreign tourists and investors.
DANANG – With over a million inhabitants, Danang in Central Vietnam is the third largest city in the country and a major economic and transportation hub. A new airport was completed in 2010 which receives already three million passengers a year. Linked internationally to Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Siem Reap and Seoul, Danang Airport is due to further see new international flights: Lao Airlines will start in November a direct route to Vientiane via Pakse while both Thai Smile and Thai AirAsia look at bringing back a missing link to Bangkok.
Danang expects to receive over 3.5 million passengers in 2012 and forecasts already over six million passengers by 2017.
According to Saigon Times, just back to three years ago, there were only two five-star hotels in Danang, namely Furama and Hoang Anh Gia Lai. Now, the city has six more hotels of same standard. The three-star hotel segment also has an additional 10 facilities, while the number of four-star hotels has doubled from two to four. Overall, Danang now has 40 hotels of three-to five-star standards.
It seems that the city’s tourism property sector has not felt the impact of a slowdown in the real estate sector in contrary to other cities in Vietnam. This is evident in the fact that many hotels and resorts have been up and running along the coastal road connecting Danang and Quang Nam in recent years.
Resort projects are in close proximity along the 10-km coastline, especially within Danang city limits. Apart from the large projects such as Hyatt Regency, Vinpearl, Life Style, and Fusion Maia that are in service, workers at other seaside hotel and resort projects are busy putting the finishing touches on these projects. According to the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Danang, there are currently 58 four-to-five-star hotel projects under development citywide, with total registered capital of US$3.4 billion. In addition, a host of small hotels are being built along some streets in the downtown. The pace of hotel construction in Danang is faster than the rest of the country.
In Danang, the domestic market still accounts for a majority of tourist arrivals. Domestic tourists often choose coastal resorts of around three stars. However, most of the coastal resorts are luxurious. This problem should be addressed over the next years to satisfy a growing number of Vietnamese but also ASEAN travellers.
One of the segments that should be promoted in Danang is coastal hotels affordable to the majority of tourists, said Cao Tri Dung, director of Vitours Travel. “Currently, Danang lacks coastal resorts of three stars or so, with room rates of US$40-50 per night. Tourists have great demand for such rooms, but travel agencies cannot find,” said Dung.
Another problem faced by Danang is the lack of planning once authorizations for a hotel is given. There is currently a mushrooming of small hotels with less than 20 rooms instead of having hotels offering larger capacities. These small hotels are rather hard to bring benefits to their owner due to high competition.
According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, since early 2012, Danang, Quang Nam, Khanh Hoa, Quang Ninh and Binh Thuan have recorded high tourism growth. In particular, tourism revenue in Danang surges sharply, earning the city the third highest tourism revenue of all localities nationwide, only after the two biggest cities Hanoi and HCMC.
According to the tourism department of Danang, in the first eight months of the year, more than 1.87 million tourists arrived in the city, up 8% year-on-year. Total revenues from tourism are estimated at VND4.09 trillion, up 29%. The figure is expected to hit VND5.5 trillion by the year’s end.
Luc Citrinot a French national is a freelance journalist and consultant in tourism and air transport with over 20 years experience. Based in Paris and Bangkok, he works for various travel and air transport trade publications in Europe and Asia.
