Since home tours are feat writer and statesman costly, Annamite travelers now incline to go foreign on Tet pass.
In the thoughts of many generations of Vietnamese people, Tet holiday is the time for family’s members to gather for family parties. However, the habit has changed: a lot of people use their free time to take outbound tours.
Outbound tours running out
Pham Tien Dung, Director of Hanoi-based Goldentour & Convention Company said that it is a growing tendency that Vietnamese people travel abroad on Tet holiday instead of staying at home for family reunion. Since this Tet holiday is long (9 days), more people want to take long distance tours on the holiday.
Dung has confirmed that his firm has received a lot of orders for the tours on Tet holiday, and that 90 percent of the tours planned by the firm have been sold.
“The number of travelers booking tours this year is higher by 30 percent than the previous year,” Dung said. Especially, most of them have booked outbound tours.
Also according to Dung, the destinations most wanted by Vietnamese travelers are Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, China and Hong Kong – the countries which are near Vietnam and have similar cultures. The departure times are between the first and ninth of January in the Lunar New Year.
Nguyen Thu Lan, Business Director of Truong Ton Trade and Tourism Company in Hanoi, said that as the information about the long Tet holiday was released soon, people can set up their travel plan soon.
“We began receiving bookings for tours from people two months ago. To date, we have sold 80 percent of the tours,” Lan said.
She also said that 70 percent of travelers have booked outbound tours, and most of them go together with families. In general, long Tet holiday is the golden opportunity for travel firms to attract clients, and they have every reason to believe that their business would prosper.
Vietravel has also launched hundreds of outbound tours, including the 100 tours to neighboring countries such as Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, China, South Korea and Japan.
Travel demand increases, tour fee skyrocket
In general, travel firms all have raised the tour fees by 20-30 percent. As explained by Lan of Truong Ton, as everything is getting more expensive, travel firms have to increase tour fees to cover expenses.
Also according to her, outbound tour fees have increased by 25 percent, while domestic tours by 20-30 percent.
At the firm, the tours to Australia are the most expensive. A seven day tour to Australia costs a traveler 65 million dong, an increase of 200 dollars over the previous years.
However, Dung of Goldentour & Convention said that the 20-30 percent tour fee increases have not influenced the demand. The number of travelers booking both domestic and outbound tours has increased over the previous years.
Nguyen Thi Thu Huyen, Managing Director of Vietnam Travel and Sports Company, also said that though the tour fees have increased by 20-100 dollars, the number of travelers booking tours still has increased by 10 percent.
Long Vietnamese Tet holiday feather foreign travel firms
It is clear that the long Tet holiday has helped stimulate the demand for traveling. However, the problem is that people do not intend to book domestic tours, but they intend to go abroad. It is simply because domestic tours are more costly than outbound tours.
The fact that the national flag air carrier unexpectedly raised the airfares commencing from mid December 2011 has made the domestic tours more expensive.
According to Cong an Nhan dan, the tours to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Myanmar which last 4-6 days, cost 5-14 million dong, which are cheaper than the tours from Hanoi to Nha Trang, Da Lat or to Phu Quoc island.
