First tourists of the year welcomed in Đà Nẵng, Hội An

ĐÀ NẴNG — More than 2,600 foreign tourists have visited Đà Nẵng on the first day of the New Year, arriving by air and sea, marking a promising start to another successful year for tourism in central Việt Nam.

On the morning of January 1, the first flight of the year carried 180 passengers from Hong Kong to Đà Nẵng airport, beginning the first tours in Đà Nẵng and Hội An.

The Hong Kong airline is operating a daily direct Hong Kong-Đà Nẵng air route with 14 flights per week.

John Rink, from San Francisco, the US, was welcomed at the airport’s arrivals hall with special gifts and best wishes of the New Year by the city’s tourism department.

John said he had transited via Hong Kong before arriving in Đà Nẵng for his business trip in central Quảng Ngãi Province.

He said he was happy to receive the warm welcome, gifts and flowers from the city of Đà Nẵng in the New Year.

The central city hosted 23 daily direct flights, of which eight were chartered flights, carrying 2.35 million tourists on 239 flights per week in 2018.

Travel agency Vietravel also brought 160 Vietnamese tourists from Đà Nẵng to destinations in Japan on the chartered direct flight from Đà Nẵng to Nagoya – the first out-bound tour of the year from the central city to Japan.  

In the afternoon of the first day of the New Year, two cruises – Costa Atlantica and Seabourn Ovation – both carrying 2,500 tourists, docked at Tiên Sa Port before traveling to Hội An and Đà Nẵng.

Vice director of the city’s tourism department, Nguyễn Xuân Bình said more than 100 cruises with 145,000 tourists had visited the city in 2018, a 66 per cent increase in comparison to 2017.