The central city of Da Nang will launch a t ourism s timulus programme from August 1 to help local businesses overcome difficulties during the low season, the Da Nang Today online reported.

The city is likely to see a significant decrease in the volume of domestic visitors from September compared with the summer months. In addition, there has been a sharp decline in the number of visitors to the city from China and its territories since mid May.

In an attempt to attract more visitors, the “2014 Tourism Stimulus” programme is to be launched one month earlier than last year’s in order to encourage more domestic tourists.

The programme, which will run until 31 December , will focus on domestic and foreign tourist markets, and MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) tourism, instead of only the domestic tourist market as last year.

According to statistics released by the city’s Tourism Promotion Centre, about 90 businesses across the city have so far registered to participate in the programme. They will offer many promotional programmes, and up to 10 percent discount on their services and products.

Apart from offering discounts, the businesses will pay special attention to diversifying their tourist products and launching new tours in order to attract more visitors to the city.

Last year’s programme drew a great deal of attention from local hotels, resorts, restaurants, transport service providers and tourist areas who offered up to 50 percent discount on their prices.

However, local travel agents were unable to offer the best prices to their customers because cooperation between themselves and the local service providers had been ineffective.

The city’s tourism experts stressed the need for airlines, travel agents and tourist areas to cooperate effectively in order to provide the most attractive promotions to visitors from both home and abroad.

Da Nang is home to an international airport with eight domestic routes and 20 international ones, an international seaport which welcomes 700,000 arrivals each year, and 337 accommodation facilities, including 10 five-star and nine four-star hotels and resorts.

In the first half of this year, it saw more than 1.7 million tourist arrivals, up 15.8 percent from the same period last year. Of this, the number of foreigners topped 450,600, a year-on-year rise of 15.7 percent.-VNA