VNExpress-Aug 13

Long-time Da Lat resident Nguyen Quy says as much as 95% of the people living in the outskirts of the central highland city have accents from other regions. In other words, they are not Da Lat “natives.” “Most [of them] have accents from central provinces, some speak northern dialects as well,” Quy, who has lived in Da lat for around 10 years, said. “It used to be not crowded in the suburbs [of Da Lat], but when I visit those places now, there are a lot of people and even more greenhouses than in the inner city.” The 2021 Vietnam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index survey showed that the central highland province of Lam Dong, of which Da Lat is the capital, ranked fourth on the list of domestic regions that have attracted the most internal migrants recently, following metropolitan areas HCMC, Hanoi, and Da Nang. Most migrants cited better environmental conditions in Lam Dong as their reason to migrate. But there is another reason for many people to move here, as observed by VnExpress reporters: the business opportunities. Tuyet Nga and her husband used to work as sales executives in HCMC. They had struggled financially for 10 years before deciding to move to Da Lat and establish a homestay. But then someone suggested that operating a homestay in Da Lat could help earn a profit between VND20 million and VND30 million a month. The couple moved to the central highlands city over a year ago to shoot for the chance to change their life forever. It turned out many people had the same idea as they did. “Around five to six out of every 10 people I meet here are migrants from other locations,” Nga said. “Most of the business owners here are not Da Lat natives.” And a lot of these people are making their living providing various forms of hospitality services, just like Nga and her husband. The result is a rising number of accommodations for rent in Da Lat, up from only 538 in 2006 to around 2,400 in 2022, more than a four-fold increase in 16 years. Da Lat has long been a popular travel destination in Vietnam. Some 1.32 million tourists visited Da Lat in 2016, but the figure had increased to roughly 5.5 million 16 years later. But this massive influx of people, both short-term tourists and new residents, is also a burden on the city’s livability. Read more at:

https://e.vnexpress.net/news/trend/big-wave-of-internal-migration-hits-da-lat-4640331.html