Local travel booms despite tough times

Local travellers are still packing their suitcases during the year-end tourist season, despite difficult economic times, according to industry insiders.

Tour companies reported that the number of tourists booked for foreign tours had increased significantly.

Saigontourist said that up to yesterday, the number of tourists planning to travel on National Day, September 2, had risen 14 per cent over the same period last year.

Vietravel also reported a surge of 20 per cent, while Fiditour’s showed a 22 per cent rise, with roughly 3,000 travellers.

Industry insiders were calling it a seasonal increase, with 30-50 per cent sales being offered in regional tourism markets such as Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore.

Tour agents said that customers often chose three to five day tours, especially to Thailand. Saigontourist said there had so far been more than 320 tourists booked to travel to Thailand from August 28 to 30, up 67 per cent year-on-year. Vietravel reported roughly a 30 per cent increase.

Despite accounting for an insignificant number of companies’ foreign tours, the growth rates of long distant and costly tours to the US, South Korea, Japan, the EU and Australia have reportedly increased sharply as well.

Fiditour said that even though travellers booking tours worth more than US$1,000 only represented 17 per cent of the company’s total foreign tours, the growth rate for such tours was still in double digits.

The number of tourists booking costly tours through Vietravel, Saigontourist and Hoan My was also up. The tourist companies said they had so far received no September bookings to the US, South Korea, Japan, the EU or Australia, adding that all customers would have to wait to travel in October.

To attract tourists, travel companies said they have tried their best to cut costs for tourists.

Head of Saigontourist’s domestic tour division Quoc Bao said his company had bought nearly 500 plane tickets to save costs for customers before Airlines applied additional fees from August 15.

However, industry insiders said that prices of domestic tours would still increase roughly 5-7 per cent over the same period last year due to soaring transportation costs.

(Source:VNN)

Tag: Airlines , Japan , Malaysia , Saigon , Tour , Tourism , Tourist , Travel

Local travel booms despite tough times

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