As many people
are preparing to travel for Tet, many travel firms complain that they are
missing big business opportunities because they are unable to satisfy the
demand.

The 2011
New Year holiday will be a long eight days which promises big business
opportunities for travel agencies because people are likely to take full advantage of the long
holiday to travel far away from home. A lot of people have been trying to
contact travel firms to book tours, but they have been told that travel
firms cannot accept any more bookings.
The problem lies in the fact that travel firms were not previously aware of the
scheduled Tet holiday, and were not prepared for serving such a high number of
travelers.

Under the
current Labor Code, employees can have four days off for Tet, December 30th of
the old lunar year (the day just before the New Year), and the first three days
of the new year. However, in many years, the four days off are followed by
Saturday and Sunday, therefore, Tet seems to last longer. Moreover, the
government has decided that employees will have two more days off for Tet,
provided that they work on the Saturday and Sunday the week before Tet. As
such, people will have eight consecutive days off.

However,
the Tet holiday schedule was only recently announced by the government and
travel firms are unable to react quickly to the announcement. They were not
prepared to serve many clients this year because they thought the holiday would
be not long enough for far trips.

Nguyen The
Khai, Director of Hoan My Travel Firm, said that his firm has stopped accepting
new bookings since January 1, 2011, but a lot of people still have contacted
him over the last week to book tour for Tet. Khai said that he has to refuse
the clients, because the company has also prepared air tickets, hotel rooms,
restaurants and other services for about 2500 travelers this Tet.

“Every day,
about 20-30 clients come to ask for booking tours, but we do not have more
tours to sell. It is a real pity but we have no other choice. If we had known
the Tet holiday schedule earlier, we would have been prepared more business
opportunities,” Khai told Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon on January 12.

At
Fiditourist, the preparation for serving 20,000 travelers on Tet holiday (an
increase of 20 percent in comparison with the previous year) was kicked off
several months ago. A representative of Fiditour also said that many clients
come to book tours these days, but the firm does not dare to accept deposit
money from clients. “We just promise to contact the clients later, while we try
to look for services,” he said.

“We did not
anticipate that the number of tourists would increase so sharply, so were not
prepared to serve them,” said Dang Trung Nghia, Deputy Director of Fiditour.

“In
general, we have to prepare to serve travelers for several months in advance.
Therefore, the tardy announcement about the Tet holiday schedule makes us
unable to contrive,” he explained.

According
to him, it is impossible to look for air tickets for flights abroad. Meanwhile,
as for domestic tours, it will be difficult to find both flights and hotel
rooms. In fact, there are still seats available for tours to the north.
However, local residents in the south who have heard about the chilling cold
weather in Hanoi, hesitate to go to Hanoi.

As for the
tours on Tet, very few travelers depart before Tet. In general, they spend the
first two days at home with family members and only depart on the third day of
the lunar new year. However, there are many people, who want to go traveling
before Tet and return home on the new year. It is regrettable that travel firms
do not have the chance to serve the clients.

“If only
the government had announced the Tet holiday schedule six months ago, travel
firms would have more business opportunities. We could have designed some tours
for the travelers who wanted to depart before Tet,” said Luu Dinh Phuc,
Director of Viettour. “Now we don’t have no other choice than sitting and
watching the opportunities pass by”.

Like other
travel firms, Saigontourist also regrets knowing the Tet holiday schedule too
late. On the day when the schedule was announced, Saigontourist launched 50
tours with the departure time before Tet. To date, the firm has received the
booking from eight groups of tourists with 30-65 travelers for each group.
15,000 travelers have bought tours for Tet at Saigontourist. This only includes
the clients who have paid, and if counting the clients who have reserved seats,
the number would be higher.

Currently
the firm reportedly only has some seats available for tours to Phan Thiet, Nha
Trang, Da Lat (by land) and some tours to the north – Hanoi, Ha Long, Ninh Binh
and Sapa (by air). The seats for outbound tours are rare. Only some 10 seats
are unoccupied for the tours to the Philippines which will depart on the first
day of the New Year, seven seats for the tour to Singapore which will depart on
the new year’s eve and 15 seats for the tour to Singapore-Malaysia which will
depart on the fifth day of the new year.

Source: Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon