VietNamNet Bridge – Travel firms polled by VietNamNet said that they have stopped accepting new bookings for tours on the April 30 – May 1 holiday. The number of travelers in the north signing up for tours abroad is sharply higher this year.

Do Son beach

To date, Hanoi Redtour has closed out bookings for 35-36 tours and can accept only one or two travelers more for each of its other 10 tours (two to Malaysia and Singapore, two to Hong Kong and six to China by land).

Meanwhile, Hoan said, only 500 travelers have booked domestic tours. Popular destinations include Da Nang City, Hoi An, and the beach resorts of Nha Trang in central Vietnam, Phu Quoc Island off the southern coast, and Cat Ba Island east of Hanoi.

Duong Mai Lan, head of research and development Division for Vietravel Hanoi also said that most of his firm’s tours for the May holiday have been fully booked. Lan said that Vietnamese travelers now tend to go abroad on holiday. This year the number of travelers registering domestic tours has increased by 10% only, while the number of travellers abroad has increased by 40%.

Outbound tours lure increasing numbers of Vietnamese travelers because tour fees have increased by 5-10% only this year. Regional destinations like Singapore, Korea and Shanghai (China) are being intensively promoted.

Deputy Head of the Saigontourist Business Development Division Nguyen Xuan Thien told VietNamNat that 2,000 travelers booked outbound tours with his firm in April 2009. South Korea has proved to be the biggest draw thanks to the low tour cost ($699/traveler), while Hong Kong is the second choice. Thailand has become less attractive recently to Vietnamese travelers because of the uncertain political situation there.

However, Thien believes that travelers from Vietnam’s northern region are more likely to choose to travel abroad than people in the south, since there are many domestic tour choices for southern residents. Approximately 2,000 travelers in groups and 1,100 individual travelers have booked domestic tours with Saigontourist.

Vietravel said that it will serve 5,000 travelers with domestic tours, and 2,500 travelers with tours abroad this May holiday, an increase of 25% over the same period of the last year.

Travel firms confirmed that domestic tour fees have increased by up to 30% over a year ago.. Explaining the higher charges, Hoan of Redtour said that the service fees all have increased during the holiday, including hotel, restaurant and parking fees, while air carriers do not offer discounts for air tickets on a number of routes during the holiday.

Staying at home to avoid traffic jams and crowds

While many Vietnamese try to travel on holiday, others, fearing the bad traffic regularly seen on holidays, have made other plans.

Nguyen Thu Oanh, who works for a foreign invested enterprise, recalled her May holiday trip two years ago. Though Oanh and friends booked hotel rooms two weeks in advance, they still could not reserve rooms, and had to stay at a newly built mini-hotel where they received bad service.

Pham Thanh Hong, 50, said that he and other members in the family will not go on tours this holiday, but will instead visit relatives in the countryside, where they can enjoy fresher air than in Hanoi.

Mai from Dong Da district in Hanoi said that she and her husband plan will take their two children to the park and entertainment places in the city during the holidays.

Ha Yen