Hanoi, Da Nang among world’s top trending destinations in 2018: Airbnb

The year is closing in and vacation enthusiasts around the world have made numerous travel plans for 2018, and they have expressed much bigger interest in Hanoi and Da Nang.

New data from Airbnb, an accommodation service that allows people to list their homes and hotels for holiday rentals, named the Vietnamese cities among the top 10 trending destinations based on booking increases over last year.

Vietnam is seeing booking surges in the cities of Hanoi (212 percent) and Da Nang (255 percent), “which blend gleaming waterfronts and centuries-old architecture with cosmopolitan amenities,” the site said in report earlier this month.

Da Nang in the central coast ranks fifth and the 1,000-year-old capital Hanoi ninth in the list, which is dominated with laid-back beach towns and mountain retreats.

The two cities are among the most popular destinations in Vietnam’s fast-growing tourism market. Hanoi expects 4.3 million foreign visitors this year, up more than 7 percent from 2016. Da Nang, which hosts the annual international fireworks festival and welcomed world leaders for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in November, is seeing a staggering 37 percent increase in foreign arrivals, to 2.3 million.

Airbnb has received bookings for the first half of 2018 and it expects the biggest year for the booking service.

Gangneung of South Korea is the most trending destination with bookings rising 2,175 percent from last year, indicating excitement for the 2018 Winter Games.

Midwestern cities in the United States with new restaurants, nightlife and local arts, and ocean-side communities in southern America also expect surges in number of visitors.

The biggest bookings go through the familiar popular destinations Tokyo, Paris, Osaka, New York, London and Rome.