Mastercard ranked 161 cities in the Asia-Pacific based on the number of overnight international arrivals and travel spending, using data primarily from national tourism boards.

Last year Hanoi received 4.8 million overnight international visitors, who stayed for 3.8 days on average while the southern metropolis had 4.1 million arrivals who stayed for 5.3 days, according to the annual Asia Pacific Destinations Index drawn up by the U.S. payment company, released last Friday.

The average spending by foreign tourists was $78 a day in Hanoi last year and $98 in Saigon, much lower than in Bangkok ($184), Singapore ($272), Kuala Lumpur ($142), Phuket ($247), or Bali ($125), it said.

Vo Quang Truong, 16, and Dang Ngoc Luc, 18, have been placed under criminal investigation, police said Saturday.

Initial investigations indicate that Truong, Luc and 15-year-old Nguyen Viet Duc were riding their motorbikes on Bach Dang Street in the ancient town of Hoi An on September 7. When they saw the British woman walking alone, they stopped their motorbikes and attempted to grope her.

However, the woman resisted them. During the struggle, she dropped her handbag, which they took and drove away. The handbag contained her iPhone, some cash and personal documents.

Truong and Luc snatched another foreign tourist’s handbag on September 11. Based on camera footage, local police arrested the trio the same day.

Duc has been released on bail. Police are expanding the investigation.

Hoi An is one of the most peaceful towns in Vietnam and a highly popular tourist destination. However, in recent years, overcrowding and street crimes are undermining its charms.

In February, police arrested four teenagers for a series of robberies targeting foreigners during the Lunar New Year holiday.

The city’s Department of Zoning and Architecture said it will increase greenery in and around the Ho Chi Minh Statue Park in front of the City Hall by planting more trees and flower gardens.

This will be part of efforts to give a facelift to the landscape of the broad Nguyen Hue Boulevard on which a large strip in the middle was made an exclusively pedestrian zone in April 2015. The place is now a popular tourist attraction.

City Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong said it was necessary to take advantage of spaces in front of restaurants and hotels on the pedestrian street to serve art performances and allow food stalls to meet the growing demand of locals and foreign tourists.

He said advertising billboards with foreign languages bigger than Vietnamese language boards will be removed. “Local authorities have to crack down on street vendors who harass foreign visitors.”

Street vending on the street was banned in April 2016, but people with baskets selling snacks and toys can still be found.

Work on a lotus-shaped water fountain is expected to be completed this month at the intersection of Nguyen Hue and Le Loi streets, which would become a key crossroad since it lies at a confluence of rapidly rising constructions, malls and other commercial activities.

Nguyen Hue, which runs from the City Hall to Ton Duc Thang Street along the Saigon River, has welcomed thousands of visitors every day since it turned pedestrian. The street gets particularly crowded during the weekends and holidays.

Saigon received more than 4.2 million foreign tourists in the first half of this year, 10 percent up from a year ago, underlining its reputation as an increasingly popular global destination.

HCMC and Hanoi were among the world’s 100 most visited travel destinations in 2018, a recent report by Euromonitor International said.

The Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam (CAAV) has submitted this conclusion to the Ministry of Transport after an appraisal of the plan to establish Vietravel Airlines, deputy head of CAAV Vo Huy Cuong told VnExpress Thursday.

With Vietravel Airlines, the tour operator plans to provide charter flights for its own customers travelling to tourist destinations. The airline will operate 3 aircraft by 2020 and 8 by 2024, according to Vietravel’s proposal.

According to CAAV, the planned growth of Vietravel Airlines’ fleet is in line with demand from Vietnam’s other aircraft operators as well as overall national aviation plans.

Vietravel Airlines’ model to operate a charter fleet serving its own customers should be encouraged, as no other enterprise in Vietnam has this model, CAAV said in its report. Currently, around 30 travel companies in the world, including TNT Vacations (U.S.) and Nord Wind (Russia), operate their own aircraft, the report noted.

However, CAAV also warned that there are potential difficulties in Vietravel choosing secondary airports in Vietnam for its network, because tourists often come from central locations such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and Da Nang.

In the event its planned charter flights end up being inefficient, Vietravel Airlines will likely be forced to operate and park overnight at major airports such as Noi Bai (Hanoi), Tan Son Nhat (HCMC) and Da Nang airports, putting further strain on an already overloaded infrastructure.

Vietravel needs to develop flexible flight plans if it wants to operate at these main airports, as the company will have difficulty booking slots as a new market entrant into the market, the CAAV report cautioned.

However, it also said that Vietravel’s proposal to headquarter its airline in Phu Bai Airport, central Hue Town, is in line with national infrastructure development plans, which envisages an upgrade to the airport between 2020 and 2030, with additional landing slots and parking space.

Vietravel already organizes charter flights with partners. In the last two years it has been operating around 300 flights a year, both domestic and international.

Vietnam currently has 6 airlines: Vietnam Airlines, budget carriers Vietjet Air and Jetstar Pacific, the Vietnam Air Services Company or VASCO, Bamboo Airways, and newly-licensed Vietstar Airlines, a military-run company.

Last year, the aviation industry served some 50 million passengers, up 10.1 percent from 2017.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc has ordered government agencies to study China’s efforts in this area and adopt a similar model. In Beijing, shops and restaurants which open from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. could receive a subsidy of $70,000, and areas which operate at least 12 hours at night get $700,000.

Nguyen Cong Hoan, deputy director of travel agency HanoiRedtours, told VnExpress International that evening is when tourists spend generously on entertainment and shopping, and therefore a nighttime policy would benefit the country.

“Major cities like Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have night markets, but there is demand for more activities. The country needs more restaurants, malls and entertainment areas remaining open after midnight to attract tourists.”

Vietnam has been focusing on nature and cultural tourism, while recreational tourism such as theme parks, shopping centers and late-night shows still have a long way to go, he said.

Hoan pointed out this is why the rate of returning foreign tourists is low compared to countries like Thailand and Singapore. According to the Pacific Asia Travel Association, about 10-40 percent of first-time visitors to Vietnam return, while the rate is 80 percent in Thailand.

“Sightseeing attracts one-time tourists, but shopping and entertainment keep them coming back,” said Hoan.

In China, night catering consumption jumped 47 percent last year from 2017, two percentage points higher than daytime growth, according to Xinhua News Agency.

Nguyen Quoc Ky, CEO of leading tourism firm Vietravel, said revenues from evening services could be much higher than in the day, but most tourism companies are focused on daytime activities, he said.

Apart from markets and backpacker areas, they do not offer tourists many other options at night, according to some tour operators.

Other industry insiders said night clubs, gaming zones and karaoke bars could be revenue spinners at night, and transport services and cross-border financial transactions should also be developed.

But some experts also expressed fears. Economist Ngo Tri Long said a nighttime economy could make drugs and prostitution more commonplace, which is the reason why the country has been reluctant to sanction late-night activities.

Thorough research is needed to see which urban areas are suitable for such policies so that locals’ lives are not affected, he said.

Vietnam’s GDP grew by 6.76 percent in the first half of this year, the highest rate for the period since 2011, according to the General Statistics Office. The Asian Development Bank last week forecast GDP growth of 6.8 percent for the full year, the highest in Southeast Asia.

Public beaches are defined as stretching 50 meters from the water, where no construction is allowed, Luu Xuan Hung, head of Ngu Hanh Son District’s Urban Regulation Department, said.

The violators include Pulchra Resort on Truong Sa Street, which has five villas on public beaches, and the Olalani Resort on Vo Nguyen Giap Street, which has a four-story structure that encroaches 130 square meters into the public beach area, Hung said.

All were built within the last decade.

Da Nang authorities used to allow resort investors to manage the beach area around their buildings.

But following public criticism that resorts tend to block public beaches from the public and reserve them to their customers, the city has changed its policy.

It has started work to build roads leading to the beaches through resorts to give access to the public.

The coastal city, usually considered the third most important in Vietnam after Hanoi and HCMC, is a top tourist destination.

It received 7.6 million tourists last year, including 2.87 million foreigners, a 23.3 percent increase from 2017.

Citing data compiled by travel search engine Kayak, the Hong Kong-based newspaper has ranked Da Nang third among 10 most popular destinations for Hong Kong holidaygoers to enjoy summer holidays based on an increase in flight searches.

Kayak data shows that the search frequencies of flights in the next two months from Hong Kong to Da Nang has seen a year-on-year surge of 246 percent.

“Hong Kong travelers are looking to discover new destinations this summer, and are not afraid to explore further from home,” Matthew Wong, Kayak’s senior Asia-Pacific regional manager.

Fukuoka in Japan was the most sought destination, with flight searches surging 304 percent year-on-year, followed by Chiang Mai in Thailand (270 percent).

Melbourne and Sydney in Australia came in fourth and fifth on the list. The rest of the top 10 included Busan in South Korea, Thailand’s Phuket, Sapporo and Okinawa in Japan and Taiwan’s Taichung.

Da Nang, home to the beautiful My Khe Beach and a neighbor to the popular ancient town of Hoi An, has a busy summer agenda with its signature international fireworks festival taking place every Saturday from  June 1 to July 6 along the Han River.

Dragon Bridge is one of the top tourist destinations in Da Nang. Photo by Shutterstock/Huy Thoai

Last year, Da Nang received 7.6 million tourists, 2.87 million of them foreigners, a 23.3 percent increase year-on-year.

South Korea, mainland China, Japan and Hong Kong are the four groups of foreign visitors with the highest growth rates in the central city.

Several new international flight routes have been launched to connect Da Nang with other Asian destinations, including mainland China, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea.

Last December, Jeju Air, another South Korean low-cost airline, began operating flights everyday between Daegu City and Da Nang. The Daegu-Da Nang flight takes around five hours. Korean Air, the oldest and largest air carrier in Asia, also launched a direct air route between Busan and Da Nang last year.

Malaysian budget airline AirAsia last April launched direct flights from Thailand’s Chiang Mai to Da Nang.

Vietnam’s private budget airline Vietjet Air plans to operate the Da Nang-Tokyo daily flights from October 26 onwards. Each flight will take around seven hours.

Earlier this year, the New York Times ranked the city among 52 best places to go in 2019, dubbing it “the Miami of Vietnam.”

Travel magazine Live and Invest Overseas, which calls itself “the world’s savviest source for top opportunities to live better, retire in style, invest for profit, do business,” voted Da Nang among world’s most livable cities last year.

Australian travel website Finder chose Da Nang as one of the best travel destinations for 2019.