Vietnam heritage town investigates foreign tourist wearing ao dai over bikini

Authorities in Da Nang are investigating two foreign tourists who were filmed walking through the UNESCO-listed ancient town of Hoi An in the ao dai, Vietnam's traditional dress, worn over a bikini and shorts.

The video, which spread quickly across social platforms on June 4, showed the pair moving through the heritage quarter. One had paired the long tunic with a bikini and the other with shorts, in place of the trousers the ao dai is normally worn over.

A local woman approached them after seeing the outfits. Through the tour guide accompanying the group, she explained that the ao dai is a traditional garment that should be treated with respect, and asked the tourists to change before continuing. In the clip she filmed, she held that the manner of dress was unacceptable and said she would wait for the visitor to change. Many viewers praised her for stepping in calmly, arguing that tourists should understand the garment's meaning before wearing it.

The strength of the reaction reflects how closely the ao dai is bound up with Hoi An. The flowing silk tunic, worn over loose trousers, is part of daily life in the town, where students cycle to class in white ao dai and visitors routinely rent one for photographs among the lantern-lit lanes and ochre walls. Wearing it is generally seen as a gesture of respect rather than appropriation, which is part of why pairing it with swimwear struck many Vietnamese as a deliberate inversion of that gesture.

On June 5, Nguyen Tan Cuong, chairman of the Hoi An Ward People's Committee, said authorities had been directed to verify the incident. Hoi An, one of Vietnam's best-known heritage destinations, became a ward of Da Nang in 2025 after the surrounding province of Quang Nam was merged into the central city. Cuong said local officials regularly remind visitors to dress appropriately and explain the need to respect the shared cultural space. He added that authorities were trying to identify the woman who corrected the group so she could be formally commended.

Van Ba Son, deputy director of the Da Nang Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said officials were checking the identity of the tour group, the company that organized the tour and when the incident took place. If a Vietnamese guide was accompanying the group, he said, the department would consider whether the guide shared responsibility.

"If we determine that the guide did not remind or advise the tourists about their clothing, or deliberately helped stage the scene to draw public attention, we will deal with it strictly," Son said.

The warning signaled that authorities are weighing whether the scene was manufactured for online attention rather than a genuine lapse in judgment, a concern that increasingly shadows viral incidents at landmark sites.

Son said the city would step up efforts to publicize its tourism code of conduct among hotels and tour operators, and that tourist sites must post clear, multilingual signs on appropriate dress. At religious sites and historic relics, he said, the area enforces a mandatory dress code requiring modest clothing, sleeved tops and trousers or skirts that fall below the knee.

Hoi An's ancient town, a well-preserved former trading port that flourished from the 15th to the 19th centuries, was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1999 and remains one of Vietnam's most visited destinations. Its narrow streets, tailor shops and riverfront draw large numbers of international travelers each year, and local officials have increasingly sought to balance that footfall against the conservation of the site.