The hotel room
rates, car rentals and meal service fees have all increased dramatically; thus,
putting a heavy burden on travel firms.

Travel
firms now can sigh with relief that the number of travelers will be high on the
April 30 holiday, despite the high inflation which has forced many people to
fasten their belt.

According
to travel firms, the number of travelers who have booked domestic tours to Da Nang, Nha Trang, Da
Lat and Phan Thiet, are 20 percent higher than that of the last year’s holiday.
A similar increase has also been reported for outbound tours, including the
ones to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia
and China.

Especially,
a firework festival that will take place in the central city of Da Nang on April 29 and
30. Therefore, the number of travelers planning to go to the sea city has
increased sharply.

Le Toan
Thanh Tung, Head of the Tour Operation of Vitour, said to date, 3000 travelers
have booked tours to Da Nang
with Vitour, an increase of 200 percent over the same period of the last year.

“It is
really good news for travel firms that the number of travelers does not
decrease, even though travel firms have to raise the tour fees by 10-15 percent
in the context of high inflation,” said Nguyen Thi Thanh Giang from
Newstartour.

Nevertheless,
the large custom has made travel firms worried, because the high number of
travelers will lead to the scarcity of hotel rooms, higher car rentals and
service fee increases.

According
to Tung, “the room rates at 1-3 star hotels are about 300,000-600,000 dong per
night, but the rates have soared to 1-3 million dong for April 30 holiday.” The
new circumstances have forced Vitour to sign contracts soon with 4-5 star hotels
soon, because luxurious hotels do not make big changes in the hotel room rates.
Meanwhile, Vitour has to accept to hire coaches to carry travelers with the
rental three times higher than that in ordinary days.

However,
travel firms have complained that even if they accept the higher rentals, they
cannot hire enough coaches, because the existing number of coaches with 45
seats in Da Nang
is not big enough to satisfy all. Vitour, for example, is considering hiring
smaller coaches, or using the coaches from neighboring provinces.

Anticipating
the problems arising on holidays, Hanoitourist said it has to “choose travelers
to serve”.

Tong Thu
Hien, Deputy Director of Hanoitourist, said that the travel firm plans to serve
the number of travelers higher by 10 percent than the last year. Besides,
Hanoitourist only designs long distance tours with aircraft being the main
means of transport, including the ones on Hanoi-Da Nang, Hanoi-Nha Trang.
Meanwhile, the firm only serves loyal clients on short tours like the one from Hanoi to Cua Lo beach.

Vu The
Binh, former Director of the Travel Department under the Vietnam National
Administration of Tourism (VNAT), said that the current tourism infrastructure
items in localities still cannot satisfy the demand, when the number of
travelers increases sharply on peak holidays, while the sharp service fee
increases always burden travel firms.

In fact,
travel firms have raised tour fees already, but the tour fee increases are not
big enough to cover the increases of expenses. Therefore, travel firms have to
cut some kinds of services in their tours. They have been warned that the cuts
may make travelers unsatisfied with the services of travel firms.

Dr Ha Van
Sieu, Director of the Tourism Research Institute under VNAT, also said that
service providers should not raise the service fees too sharply, or they will
lose clients.

Source: TBKTVN