Hội An's old town is quieter than usual, and experts quoted by Báo Đà Nẵng say the lull is a good moment to ask how many visitors the heritage district can take. Lodging, service and souvenir businesses reported fewer customers and weaker spending in late October.
A city official told a third-quarter press conference that the dip is not unusual because October and November are low season in Hội An every year. In the first nine months of 2026, the Hội An World Heritage Conservation Centre counted more than 1.28 million ticket-buying visits and revenue above 147 billion dong, down 2.78% on a year earlier. Tour and booking data suggest numbers will pick up again from early December, the paper says.
The article does not give a numerical limit for the old town or for any single site. Dr Phạm Thanh Hường, quoted as head of the culture department at the UNESCO office in Hanoi, said ticket sales have levelled off at roughly 1.7 to 1.8 million a year since 2023. She argued that growth based on volume is nearing its limit and called for an integrated plan that spreads visitors across the town, manages peak hours, develops new routes and shares benefits with residents.
Architect Hoàng Đạo Bảo Cầm of the Vietnam Institute of Culture, Arts, Sports and Tourism proposed managing capacity place by place and hour by hour rather than with one cap for the whole district. Candidate spots for study include the area around the Japanese Covered Bridge, parts of Trần Phú street, houses that receive guests and riverside boat points. Each would get normal, warning and regulation thresholds, and when numbers near the warning level, tour coordinators, guides and transport operators would be told so they can change timing and visiting order.
Phan Xuân Thanh, vice chairman of the Da Nang Tourism Association, suggested a working group to pick three to five tourism products for Hội An each year to pilot and scale up. Associate Professor Phạm Trung Lương of the Vietnam Tourism Training Association said capacity should weigh the environment, infrastructure, visitor experience, management ability and community impact, not just head counts.
The paper stresses that capacity management does not mean limiting total visitors. It points to Politburo Resolution 26-NQ/TW of 22 August 2026, which calls for tourism that favours quality and sustainability over volume, and says the low season can be used for maintenance, landscaping and service upgrades.
Sources
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