Though
Vietnamese people now have to tighten their purse strings in the price storm,
the number of tourists are still believed to increase by 25-30 percent on
holidays. Also, Vietnamese travelers would choose outbound tours instead of
domestic tours, because it is less costly to travel abroad.

Traveling abroad – the top choice

Vietnamese travelers choose outbound tours instead of domestic tours, because it is less costly to travel abroad

Some travel
firms said they have stopped accepting new bookings for outbound tours on the April
30th holiday, though the holiday will come in just two weeks.

According
to Nguyen Minh Man from Vietravel, “the demand for Vietnamese traveling abroad has
increased by 30-40 percent over the previous year.”

The fees of
outbound tours have been kept unchanged, or have just increased by as little of
10 percent. Vietravel said it plans to serve 19,000 travelers on April 30th
holiday. Currently, 15,000 travelers have booked tours so far.

Representatives
from other travel firms also agree that Vietnamese travelers now prefer
traveling abroad, because outbound tours are much cheaper than domestic tours.
It is clear that domestic tours cannot compete with outbound tours. Also,
foreign countries prove to be by far more professional than Vietnam in
exploiting their tourism sites.

Travel
firms are offering a tour from HCM City to Cambodia (4 days and 3 nights) with
the tour fee of 3.2 - 4.2 million dong per traveler. A tour to Thailand (5
days and 4 nights) costs 6.2 - 6.6 million dong per traveler.

Meanwhile,
a tour from HCM City
to Hanoi, Ninh
Binh, Ha Long Bay and Bac Ninh (4 days and 3 nights) costs 8.6 - 9.3 million
dong per traveler. Travelers would have to pay 7.5 million dong for a tour to
Phu Quoc island, which lasts three days and two nights.

The tours
to Thailand, China, Cambodia,
Singapore and Malaysia prove
to be most attractive to Vietnamese travelers. Most of the outbound markets
remain stable, except Japan,
which has been severely affected by the earthquake and tsunami in March.

While
domestic tours all have seen sharp tour fee increases, thus becoming less
attractive to Vietnamese travelers, outbound tours remain very attractive after
some Asian markets have launched promotion campaigns, with big discounts and
offered gifts. Especially; the transport fee, hotel room rates and meal
services have remain unchanged.

According
to travel firms…in the past, 60 percent of Vietnamese people would choose to
travel domestically, while 40 percent would like to travel abroad. However, the
proportion has inversed into 40 and 60. Even travel firms also like organizing
outbound tours, because the expenses prove to be stable which does not take
travel firms much time to recalculate tour fees regularly.

Domestic tours becoming too
expensive

Travel
firms say they have got puzzled because of the sharp increases of all kinds of
goods and services. The firms have to raise the domestic tour fees by 30-50
percent due to the higher airfares, electricity, petroleum and cooking prices;
even though they know that the tour fee increases would not attract travelers.

Especially,
travel firms have warned that the current tour fees may still be raised towards
the holiday, because the input costs continue increasing.

“We are
sure of taking a loss if serving crowded groups in domestic tours. We would
rather to sell tours to separate travelers or providing outbound tours,” said
Dinh Quang Luc, General Director of South Pacific travel firm. “Everything is
getting more and more expensive, thus making travel firms distressed. However,
in fact, travelers will be the biggest sufferers”.

In explaining
the domestic tour fee increases, travel firms say that there are no big
national tourism promotion campaigns this year, therefore, the firms cannot
negotiate for best airfares and service fees.

In
2009-2010, when Vietnam
launched the “Impressive Vietnam” national tourism promotion campaign, travel
firms, hotels, service providers all joined forces to attract travelers, which
allowed to reduce the tour fee by 20-35 percent.

C. V