New impetus from the CIS market

The Da Nang International Tourism Festival 2025 organized many tourism promotion events, expanding cooperation opportunities for travel companies with potential tourist markets. Photo: HAO LUONG

New market full of potential

Mr. Tan Van Vuong, Deputy Director of the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of Da Nang, said that in the first 9 months of the year, the city's tourism industry welcomed more than 14.4 million overnight visitors, an increase of more than 22% over the same period last year. Of which, international visitors reached 5.8 million, an increase of 31%.

Especially the CIS tourist market (Commonwealth of Independent States, including 9 official member countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) with more than 220,000 visitors, accounting for nearly 4.2% of the structure of international visitors to Da Nang .

2025 also marked a successful CIS tourist season when direct flights from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan were put into operation with a total frequency of 16 flights/week, contributing to promoting the tourist market from this region.

Although Russia does not have direct flights to Da Nang, the Russian tourist market has grown strongly in recent times. If in 2024, Russian visitors reached about 68,000, then in the first 9 months of 2025, the number doubled.

Along with Russian visitors, visitors from the CIS bloc, especially countries with direct flights such as Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the number of visitors to Da Nang city achieved a very high growth rate with 91,000 Kazakhstan visitors in the first 9 months of the year.

On April 2, 2025, Da Nang welcomed the first flight from Kazakhstan with more than 300 passengers. In the past 9 months, there have been more than 30 flights carrying a large number of tourists from the CIS market, which is among the top international visitors to Da Nang.

Mr. Nguyen Trung Khanh, Director of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, said that tourists from the CIS region are emerging as one of the potential and stable markets, contributing significantly to the number of international tourists to Vietnam. It is forecasted that the end of the year will be the peak season for international tourists from CIS countries and there will be a golden growth. This is positively impacted by the policies and promotion of countries and localities.

“We appreciate that Da Nang city has prepared services, products, human resources, infrastructure and implemented promotional activities to effectively exploit the CIS tourist market in recent times, laying a solid foundation for Da Nang to continue to improve its competitiveness and sustainably attract this source of tourists in the coming years.

With the dynamism of the locality, the proactive creativity of businesses and strong support policies from the State, we believe that the CIS tourist market will continue to grow strongly, contributing positively to the goals that the Government has assigned to Da Nang in 2025," said Mr. Khanh.

Build a systematic strategy

Through surveys from travel agencies and recent tourism activities, it can be seen that CIS market visitors are interested in beach resorts, package tours and spend 30-35% of their budget on accommodation. In addition, they also spend about 20% on food service packages. In the structure of visitors to the city, 70% of visitors from this market set foot in Ba Na Hills. In addition, visitors also prefer destinations such as My Son, Hoi An and especially the beach entertainment area.

Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong Tham, Director of Da Nang Tourism Promotion Center, said that one of Da Nang's strengths is its experiential products, heritage, culture, and tour activities around the city.

In addition, after merging with Quang Nam, Da Nang's infrastructure system has more than 2,300 hotels with an extremely large number of rooms; out of 44,000 rooms, 4 and 5 star hotels account for 47%. "These hotels, which have welcomed the international tourist markets of Korea, China and Japan in recent times, have standardized their services with major brands.

In addition, Da Nang's airport system is greatly supported by Da Nang International Terminal Investment and Operation Joint Stock Company (AHT) with 5-star standards, welcoming guests right from the city's gateway. All these advantages help Da Nang feel completely secure about the quality of services to exploit long-term markets such as Russian and CIS guests," Ms. Tham shared.

However, besides the advantages, Da Nang also faces some difficulties, that is, the CIS tourist season coincides with the domestic tourist season from April to October, especially the number of visitors exploding during the international fireworks festival season, forcing accommodation establishments to know how to balance between short-term and long-term guests to serve effectively.

Not to mention, from October onwards is the rainy season so visitors start to go to Nha Trang and Phu Quoc. In addition, because they are just starting to catch up with this market, hotels in Da Nang have not yet completed service packages to meet the needs of visitors. CIS market tourists mainly speak Russian so there is a shortage of Russian-speaking human resources.

In 2026, to continue maintaining growth momentum and attracting CIS visitors, Ms. Nguyen Thi Hong Tham said, the Da Nang Tourism Promotion Center will advise the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism to participate in major fairs in the Russian market, and promote communication and promotion.

At the same time, the city will cooperate with localities such as Nha Trang and Phu Quoc to promote international visitors from the Russian and CIS markets on domestic flights to Nha Trang and Phu Quoc, to visit Da Nang. The Da Nang Tourism Promotion Center launched an electronic information portal in Russian for Russian and CIS visitors to access official information.

Source: https://baodanang.vn/dong-luc-moi-tu-thi-truong-cis-3308380.html