Advantage and disadvantage of Da Nang tourism

Da Nang

Introduction

Da Nang is the centre of economic, political and culture of the Middle of Vietnam. Being known as the gateway to the “World Heritage Road” in Central Vietnam, Da Nang is located near four UNESCO World Heritages. They are Hoi An Ancient Town, My Son Holy Land, Hue Imperial City, and Phong Nha – Ke Bang National Park. (DaNang, 2011) Da Nang has many beautiful attractive places such as : Da Nang beach - one of the most beautiful and luxurious beaches in the world (Forbes, n.d.), Marble Mountains –wonderful mountain with a lot of caves used as Buddhist sanctuaries, Ba Na Mountain - located in northwest of Da Nang city, known by their eco-tourism villages with four seasons in one day, Son Tra Peninsula - a “Monkey mountain” with a fantastic view to city and Hai Van Pass - the most imposing landscape, located at the natural border between Hue and Da Nang. (DaNang, 2011). The city’s total area is 1256 km2 and the population is 800000 people. (Hung, 2009)

Advantages of Da Nang’s tourism

The tropical weather conditions (25 C, 300 days sunshine, 80% humidity) are the first advantage of Da Nang tourism. The perfect weather for tourism which stays for almost the whole year helps Da Nang to have an unbroken and stable amount of visitors. It means in Da Nang, there is no special tourist season because it is the whole year. Furthermore, the promising location nears four over five world heritage in Vietnam is also a gratification of Mother Nature to Da Nang tourism. Staying in the middle, Da Nang likes the bridge to connect differently famous heritages that have been known all over the world. Therefore, the potential tourists for are not only the directly visitors, but also the indirectly people that come from the famous places near Da Nang. The multiform of also helps Da Nang to attract various type of tourists such as beach tourism, forest tourism, mountain tourism, etc… When coming there, one of the things that foreign tourists like the most in here is the inexpensive living cost. Due to the data of Numbeo.com, one meal in inexpensive restaurant is only 1.26 euro, combo meal in McDonalds is only about 2.49 euro, one pack of cigarette - brand Marlboro – is 0.57 euro, which is 2 to 10 times cheaper compare to Ireland and other Western countries. Consequently Da Nang is an ideal place for cheap tourist.

In addition, culture is a vital part that can’t be missed when searching about Da Nang’s tourism. Bearing the strong stamp of central region’s culture, Da Nang has various cultures such as Viet-Cham culture, sea region culture, etc… Therefore, culture festivals, relics, cuisine in Da Nang are the resources to attract billions of visitors every year. (IPCDaNang, 2012). Moreover, As the fourth largest city of the country, Da Nang is well planned, well proper governed and it has been considered as the most important city in the central coastal region as a region economic hub. (Dang, 2011). Thus, the support of government for the development of Da Nang’s tourism is one of the conditions for the rapid development. The investment for real estate projects so far lured over 2 billion USD (Agency, 2009). The affluent finance gives Da Nang a competitive edge to improve infrastructure, service, and other things for tourism.

Disadvantages of Da Nang’s tourism

However, there are a lot of difficulties for the growth of Da Nang’s tourism. The weather is great for visitors thanks to the sea-bank position. On the other hand, this location is also a weakness of Da Nang, especially in the rainy season. The typhoon, cyclone and hurricane come from the sea are dangers for citizens and visitors. For examples, typhoon Ketsana in 2009 damaged nearly 170 000 houses as well as crops and irrigation system (MYDANS, 2009). Next the topsy-turvy development of Da Nang is also a problem for tourist development. Plenty of shopping center, hotel, hostel, and guesthouse have been built uncontrollably and lack of scheme (Mitchell & Phuc, 2007). Furthermore, the infrastructure has not developed adequately to meet the demand of fast developing economy. In general, the rank of Vietnam’s infrastructure in general is 95 out of 124 countries. (Mitchell & Phuc, 2007, p.9) Therefore, public transport service is poor; traffic situation gets worse; traffic congestion during rush hour period increases rapidly since 2010. Then ưastewater service is not met the requirement of international standard (Dang, 2011, p.3). They are the barriers for tourists, especially people from Western countries such as USA, UK and European countries.

Moreover, the weak and inexperienced management of local Government is also the obstruction of tourist development. According to this , hotels and tourist services have been opened without scheme. Coming together with the inadequate development of city is social evils such as drug, prostitution and robbery that can destroy the image of city in the eyes of visitors. Last but not least, the complicatedly and slowly working procedure makes a lot of difficulties for investors to invest in Da Nang tourism. For example, it takes 6 months for hotels to get their classification approved. (Mitchell & Phuc, 2007, p.39)