Souvenir business in the central city of Da Nang has strongly developed in recent years. The business has created jobs for local people and helped lure more tourists to the city, Da Nang Today reported.
The Quang Huy Handicrafts Production Company in Cam Le District is a typical example. Apart from expanding its space and creating more job opportunities for local people, the company now produces various tourism products.
Amongst them, the hand-made wooden items depicting the Dragon Bridge are the most popular. In addition, the company has also received many orders for other wooden products such as fruit dishes, flower baskets, and sailing ships inside bottles.
Another example is the Truc Xanh (Small Green Bamboo) Company in Ngu Hanh Son d istrict, which specialises in making handicrafts from quartz. In addition to a wide range of stone jewellery and statues, Truc Xanh has created many landscape paintings made from quartz such as the beauty of the Son Tra Peninsula, the Marble Mountains, and the cherry bell flowers of the Ba Na Hills Resort.
The company has also provided many products imbued with Vietnamese cultural identity, including rice mortars.
The company’s Director Nguyen Thi Thanh Huyen, said that her company’s products have helped to advertise the city's image and promote her company’s own brand name to international markets.
She added that her company’s products are often sold at fairs and at the Museum of Cham Sculpture. Most notably, her company often receives orders from the city’s agencies and departments to present to their foreign partners.
Thanh Thien Fine Art Sculptures, Pho Hoi and Dai Duong (Ocean) Gifts companies have also become actively involved in creating new tourism souvenirs, and improving the quality of their existing ones.
Their products, which are mainly made from bamboo, wood and stones, re-create some of the unique images of the city, such as the Marble Mountains, the Han River Swing Bridge and the Dragon Bridge.
Da Nang plans to develop tourism into one of the key sectors that makes up a large proportion in its economic structure. The city has set a target of welcoming 3.6 million visitors, including 820,000 foreigners, earning more than 8.8 trillion VND (420 million USD) in 2014. It also aims for an average annual tourism revenue growth of 15-16 percent between now and 2020.
Last year, the city welcomed over 3.1 million travellers, including 743,000 foreign visitors, generating some 7.8 trillion VND (371 million USD), an increase of 29.8 percent from 2012.-VNA
