APEC 2027 in Phu Quoc: Dates, Venue and Travel

APEC 2027, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, holds its Economic Leaders’ Week on Phu Quoc in November 2027. The exact dates had not been announced when we last checked, on 28 October 2026. Leaders of the 21 APEC economies are expected, with about 10,000 delegates including officials, journalists and business representatives (VnExpress, October 2026). They will meet in a new convention centre on reclaimed land at Bai Dat Do (Bãi Đất Đỏ), about 2 km up the coast from the Kiss Bridge in Sunset Town. Until mid-2027, the south of the island is a building site.

This page is about the APEC forum, not the power-electronics conference that also goes by APEC.

When is APEC 2027?

What is known as of October 2026:

The Leaders’ Week is in November 2027, on Phu Quoc. No dates yet. Vietnam’s two earlier APEC summits were also in November: Hanoi in 2006, and Da Nang in 2017, where the meetings ran from 2 to 11 November.
The APEC year starts before that, and not on Phu Quoc. The first official meeting is an informal senior officials’ meeting (ISOM) in Gia Lai province in December 2026 (Vietnam News, 1 October 2026).
Senior officials meet four times. Decision 1508/QĐ-TTg puts the National Committee for APEC 2027 in charge of the Leaders’ Week and of four rounds of Senior Officials’ Meetings (SOM). Where those four rounds will be held has not been published.
The theme is Kết nối, xây dựng các nền kinh tế bao trùm và tự cường: connecting, building inclusive and resilient economies.

The government has asked for an official APEC 2027 website and a media centre on Phu Quoc. When the dates come out, they go at the top of this page.

Where: the APEC convention centre at Bai Dat Do

The venue is the APEC Convention and Exhibition Centre, built by Sun Group (the company behind Sunset Town and the Hon Thom cable car) under a public–private partnership. It covers more than 16 hectares of reclaimed land at Bai Dat Do and cost 21.86 trillion dong, about US$835 million (VietnamPlus, August 2026). The roof is 13 curved steel spans meant to look like waves, and it is hard to miss: you can see it from the Kiss Bridge area. The bridge itself is closed at sunset, so go in the morning; see Sunset Town for the hours.

Inside, according to VnExpress and Thanh Niên (October 2026):

The main ballroom is 11,050 m² with an 81 m span and no columns. It has been billed as bigger than the largest ballroom in Las Vegas.
The leaders’ meetings will be held in a separate 3,000 m² ballroom on the third floor. The second floor has 12 large meeting rooms that can be split up, and the first floor has the press rooms and restaurants.
During the summit, the building is designed to have layers of security zones, rooms for bilateral meetings, waiting rooms for heads of state and separate entrances for them (Tuổi Trẻ).

About 200 metres away is the APEC Multipurpose Performance Hall, 4,030 seats under a domed roof held up by 50 columns, designed around the legend of the Dragon and the Fairy. The opening and closing ceremonies will be held there. Sun Group told Tuổi Trẻ that it will be finished on 30 April 2027; VnExpress reported late June 2027.

The finished wave-shaped roof of the convention centre on the left and the steel frame of the round performance hall with cranes on the right, either side of a dirt road The convention centre (left) and the performance hall (right) on 3 October 2026. Photo: Nam Tuan, via Google Maps

Progress. On 23 October 2026 the convention centre was 98% structurally complete, with all the steelwork and roof sheeting done; the outside walls are due to be closed in by the end of 2026 (Thanh Niên). Sun Group plans a trial run on 30 January 2027 and aims to finish at the end of February (Tuổi Trẻ); the interiors are due by 31 March 2027. The provincial leadership has promised that every APEC project will be finished before 30 June 2027.

It is a fenced construction site, not something you can visit. The An Thoi page covers the rest of the south.

What is being built, and what changes for visitors

There are 21 APEC projects on and around the island, and the An Giang provincial chairman has set 31 May 2027 as the final deadline (Tuoi Tre News, September 2026). The ones that matter to a visitor:

The airport. The runway expansion is finished. A VIP terminal shaped like a sea eagle, with nearly a hectare of floor space, will receive heads of state and delegations of around 300 people. The new Terminal 2 was 72% built in late September 2026, and the first phase is due to open in April 2027, taking the airport to 20–24 million passengers a year (Tuoi Tre News). From then on, check which terminal your flight uses; see Phu Quoc airport.
A light rail line. About 17.6 km from the airport to the convention centre in the south, built by Sun Group for nearly 9 trillion dong. Trial runs are planned for June 2027 and passenger service for August 2027, with the airport to the south in about 20 minutes (Vietnam News; Tuoi Tre News, August 2026). It was 40.9% built in September. Until it runs, a Grab from the airport to Sunset Town costs about 250,000 dong; see getting around.
Roads and streets. The 19.26 km DT.975 provincial road was 51% complete in September 2026 and the 2.81 km APEC Boulevard 22%. In Duong Dong, overhead cables are being moved underground (63%).
Hotels. Sun Group broke ground on 28 January 2026 on two projects with about 12,000 hotel rooms and serviced apartments between them (Saigon Times). The bigger one, at Bai Dat Do along APEC Boulevard, has 17 seafront towers with nearly 7,000 rooms and 13 brands, among them SO/, Conrad and W Hotels, all three new to Vietnam (VietnamPlus). The 17 hotels are due in September 2027. Until they open, see where to stay.
Smaller changes. English classes for residents run from September 2026 to June 2027 in Duong Dong, Ganh Dau, An Thoi and Duong To (government news portal), and An Thoi is getting wastewater treatment for 15,000 m³ a day, funded with 800 billion dong of public money.

Travelling to Phu Quoc during APEC week

What has been announced (October 2026). Not much, and none of it is aimed at tourists yet. Officials have chosen sites for no-fly and restricted-flight warning signs around Phu Quoc and Rach Gia airports. The province is compiling lists of shops that sell and repair drones and of people who use them for farming, surveys, filming and events, and is checking them more closely. Police patrols on the island have been stepped up (VnExpress, 23 October 2026).

What has not been announced: the dates, road closures, any restricted zone around the venue, whether beaches or sights near it will close, any limit on commercial flights, or rules for hotels. If you read about “red zones” or beach closures for APEC 2027, check the source: we found no official one.

What happened last time. For APEC 2017 in Da Nang, the city’s tourism department banned tourism and transport on the Son Tra peninsula, where the summit meetings were held. Hotels and travel agents could not take tourists there from 30 October until the summit ended on 12 November, and construction work stopped (DTiNews, 21 October 2017). Transport companies were told not to disclose delegates’ hotels, schedules or menus. In 2006, Hanoi set aside eight large hotels for the leaders’ delegations and 1,200 rooms in other hotels for foreign journalists (Sài Gòn Giải Phóng).

Our advice, not official:

If your dates are flexible, leave the first half of November 2027 open until the dates are announced. In Da Nang, the ban on Son Tra ran from 30 October to 12 November, two weeks.
If you have to travel then, book rooms and flights you can cancel.
Base yourself away from the south. The venue and the new delegate hotels are all at Bai Dat Do, next to Sunset Town. The north of the island, around Ganh Dau and Bai Dai, and the east coast are the furthest from it.
Leave the drone at home. The rules are already strict; see drones on Phu Quoc.
Keep the scale in mind. Phu Quoc expected more than 8 million visits in 2025 (Tuổi Trẻ), roughly 22,000 a day. Ten thousand delegates will not fill the island; the effect will be concentrated in the south and on the roads to it.

November is also the start of the dry season and of the international high season; see Phu Quoc in November.

Construction in 2026 and 2027

If you visit before mid-2027, this is what the APEC push means on the ground:

The south. Around Bai Dat Do the site roads are bare earth, busy with lorries and cranes (see the photos above, from October 2026). Work on the convention centre and the performance hall goes on through the night (Tuổi Trẻ), and more than 15,500 engineers and workers were on APEC sites in September 2026 (Tuoi Tre News). If you are staying in Sunset Town, ask for a room facing away from Bai Dat Do.
Duong Dong. Streets are being dug up to bury cables.
The airport. The old terminal handles every flight until T2 opens, with construction traffic on the airport road; our airport guide has the details.
Delays. The province blames the rainy season, slow land handovers and material shortages for delays so far, and has ordered contractors to make up the time. The hotels are due in September 2027, two months before the summit.

After APEC

The convention centre is meant to stay in use. After the summit, many of its spaces can be turned over to business conferences, trade fairs, performances and community events, and the covered walkways and outdoor areas are designed for open-air exhibitions and night markets (Tuổi Trẻ, October 2026). The performance hall is meant for cultural events, film festivals and large concerts (VnExpress). Together with the Bai Dat Do hotels and the rail line from the airport, the plan is to make Phu Quoc a conference destination outside the beach season. After the summit, this page will become a guide to the venue.

Questions about APEC 2027 in Phu Quoc

General questions about the island, from money to tap water, are in our Phu Quoc FAQ.

Is Phu Quoc open to tourists during APEC 2027?

Yes. Nothing announced so far closes the island. Expect restrictions around the venue in the south, as on Son Tra in Da Nang in 2017; their extent will only be known once the security plan is published.

Will Phu Quoc airport close during APEC?

Nothing has been announced. Heads of state will be received at the separate VIP terminal. Check with your airline nearer the time.

Do I need a visa?

Tourists follow the normal rules: flying in from abroad, you get 30 days visa-free on the island; see Phu Quoc visa rules. APEC itself does not change them. Accreditation for delegates and journalists had not been published by October 2026.

Can I fly a drone during APEC?

Don’t plan on it. Even before APEC, drones over 250 g need a permit applied for days ahead, and the island’s airports are getting no-fly signs.

When will the dates be announced?

We do not know. We check every month and will put the dates at the top of this page as soon as they are published.

Last checked 28 October 2026 against the sources listed below. We re-check every month and at each milestone: the convention centre trial run (30 January 2027), Terminal 2 (April 2027), the project deadline (30 June 2027) and the official dates.

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Last updated: October 2026. Prices, schedules and opening hours change — check locally before you rely on them.

Fares, schedules and rules verified October 28, 2026 · Sources (17)