Duc Loi, a retired man at Kim Nguu residential quarter, complained that
his family members want to organize a trip to Da Nang’s sea, but they still
cannot find any tours which have the reasonable fees fitting their pockets.



Loi is not alone. In the “price storm”, when people have to fasten their
belt, a lot of travelers want to choose cheap tours which are not too costly. It
is now easy to find the information about low cost tours people want.



The websites of travel firms and air carriers always post the notices
about the sales promotion campaigns, where they offer tour fee reductions and
air ticket discounts. Travelers, who hunt for low cost tours, need to use the
service of receiving information automatically from tourism websites, or
regularly access to the small ad columns on websites in order not to miss lucky
opportunities.



Besides this, classified ad websites or small ad columns on forums are
also the good addresses to click mouse to. For example, if accessing to
vatgia.com (prices), and type “du lich gia re” (low cost tours), one would find
the information about 2500 product packages with preferential fees, including
both domestic and outbound tours, and the information about separated services,
such as cheap railway or air ticket booking.



The information about low cost tours has also been shared by office
workers on many forums, namely Ttvnol.com, Webtretho.com, Lamchame.com. The
topics, like “the experiences to hunt for low cost tours” or “traveling at low
costs, why not?” always catch the special attention of members. This explains
why many travel firms try to post the ad pieces on tour discount programs on
these websites and forums.



Especially, some companies have cooperated with the websites which
specialize in providing products with discounts, to do business. For example,
some travel firms have “shaken hands” with Cucre.vn (very cheap), offering the
40-50 percent tour fee discounts for travelers. These are really good
opportunities for travelers to access summer tours at reasonable fees.



Nguyen Thi Phuong, an officer of Bai Tu Long Hung Nguyen Company in Hanoi
said that though traveling with low cost tours, travelers still can enjoy high
quality of services. Travel firms offer tour fee discounts just because they
want to popularize their brands or simply attract travelers to some certain
routes, which are not their advantages.



Phuong also said that not many low cost tours have been available.
Therefore, in order to successfully obtain low cost tours, travelers have to
accept stricter conditions, including the conditions on departure time.
Especially, the travelers cannot cancel tours.



Also according to Phuong, if travelers are lucky enough to register tours
at the time when travel firms launch sales promotion programs, they would be
able to enjoy the tour fees which are lower by up to several millions of dong in
comparison with the normal fees.



Thu Trang, in charge of the marketing division of vatgia.com, said that it
would be better to surf on Internet to check the tour fees offered by different
travel firms and compare the fees to choose the best ones.



On May 12, Hotels.com, the company which specializes in hotel services
globally put into operation a website in Vietnamese language which provides the
hotel room booking service in Vietnam.



Via http://vi.hotels.com/, Vietnamese travelers and businessmen can choose
and book hotel rooms at 135,000 hotels in Asia and in the world. While
automatically arranging choices, the website prioritizes introductions to
Internet users–the hotels which are offering hotel rooms at low rates, or the
hotels which are running sales promotion campaigns.



Johan Svanstrom, Vice President and Managing Director of Hotels.com in
Asia Pacific, said the website has been launched after Hotels.com realized that
Vietnam is one of the most important growing market for online traveling, thanks
to the improving broadband Internet services, mobile phones and the increasingly
high number of credit card users.



According to Internet Vietnam Center, there are 27.8 million Internet
users in Vietnam, accounting for 32 percent of the total population.



C. V