Vietnam Daily News

New Year tour not as hot as predicted

Written by Dailynews.vn Saturday, 17 December 2011 09:44

Vietnam News - The running out of tours and the overloading will not be
seen in this New year tour season. Since people have to fasten their belt,
travel firms’ offices seem to remain quiet with limited bookings.

“The number of travelers booking tour for this Christmas and New Year tour does
not increase greatly in comparison with the previous year because the Tet
holiday comes just several days after the New Year holiday”, said an executive
of Vietravel.

Doan Thi Thanh Tra, head of marketing division of Saigontourist, since early
November, 2,000 travelers have booked tours for Christmas holiday and 2012 New
Year, an increase of 10 percent over the same period of last year.

As for domestic tours, travelers tend to choose short-term tour to Phan Thiet,
Nha Trang, Phu Quoc Island where they can go discovering and fishing, or to Da
Lat to attend Da Lat Flower Festival.

Tran Quoc Bao, head of domestic travel division of Saigontourist said that the
tours to islands and to the sea remain the top choice of travelers. For example,
our tours to Phan Thiet, Nha Trang, Da Nang, Phu Quoc…have most attracted
travelers. Unlike previous years, travelers nowadays try to arrange their trips
soon and book tours many days in advance so as to be able to choose the best
tour”.

Bao has affirmed that the overloading and the early closing of tours will not
happen this year because the number of travelers will be not overly high like in
previous years.

Many travel firms have launched the tours specifically designed for Viet kieu,
or oversee Vietnamese who return to Vietnam to celebrate Tet. Those who return
to Vietnam many days before Tet prefer the tour from Hanoi to Trang An tourism
site, Do temple and Ha Long bay which lasts four days. They also like the
four-day-tour from Da Nang to Hoi An, Ba Na tourism site and Hue.

Duong Mai Lan, a senior executive of Vietravel said that the fees of the
outbound tours on Tet holiday will not increase greatly in comparison with
ordinary days. Most of the tour fees keep unchanged while travelers will enjoy
fee reduction for some tours thanks to the sale promotion campaign lauched by
Vietnam Airlines. For example, the tour fee to the UK has decreased by five
billion dongs.”

Since the holiday is short, travelers tend to go to nearby markets such as
Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Myanmar, Brunei, Indonesia and
Cambodia.

Saigontourist has found out from its survey that travelers usually choose
economy tours, which fit their pockets such as the one to Fuji Mount – Japan ot
tours to South Korea including Pusan – Jeju – Seoul – Everland which costs
15,990,000 dongs.

Whether to raise tour fee was once a headache to travel firms. Despite the low
demand travel firms still have decided to raise the tour fee by 15 – 20 percent
in comparison with the last year due to the input service fee increases. Nguyen
van My, General Director of Lua Viet travel firm said that in principle, travel
firms can raise the tour fee when everything gets more expensive. However,
travel firms have only raised fee at a moderate level because they understand
that overly high increases would badly affect the tourism industry.

Pham Le Thao, Deputy Director of the Travel Department of the Vietnam National
Administration of Tourism (VNAT) said that the tour fee increases are beyond the
control of travel firms, because the hotel room rates has increased by 30
percent and meal services by 20 percent.

Hong Minh

Source: www.lookatvietnam.com/2011/12/new-year-tour-not-as-hot-as-predicted.html