DA NANG — Da Nang hotels are near full and airlines running out of tickets as 70,000 people are expected to attend the two-night international fireworks festival, which begins in the central city tomorrow. The number is up 40 per cent over last year's figure, and the nearly 60,000 tickets for the event have now sold out, according to the Da Nang Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
Ngo Thi Hoang Anh, deputy head of the department's professional knowledge section, said many hotels had opened new rooms in preparation for the event. About 312 hotels and motels in the city now provided around 6,110 rooms, increasing several hundreds of rooms compared to those of last year.
But rooms in centrallylocated hotels like Bach Dang Riverside, Green Plaza and Bamboo Green were fully reserved, while very few spaces could be booked in hotels away from the city centre.
The department said it associated with 76 hotels in Hoi An City and 20 hotels in Lang Co Town to ease the accommodation pressure. With a total of about 9,810 rooms in Da Nang and the nearby areas, the city could arrange accommodation for 40,000 tourists. The Vietnam Airlines central region office said the firm provided 42 additional flights from Ha Noi and HCM City to Da Nang between March 25 and 29 to serve increasing demand on the routes in these days, but tickets were still scarce. All economy-class tickets for eight flights today from HCM City had sold out, according to the office.
Jetstar Airline official Tran Hoang Linh said the firm had also reached its full capacity for the routes. "Three days before and after the fireworks festival, we have no available seats," he said.
By land, the Mai Linh Express carrier said about two-thirds of its seats for long-distance trips to Da Nang during the rest of this week had been reserved.
"We will have had to increase the number of buses available to Da Nang because demand is still very high," said Pham The Vy, director of Mai Linh Express central region.
The Da Nang Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said the situation was good news for the city's tourism industry as it targeted to reach more than VND1 trillion (US$54 million) in total tourism turnover this year, with about 1.45 million tourists. — VNS