Tourism Season 2009 Eyes Domestic Visitors

 

In the context of global economic downturn, the Vietnam Administration of Tourism (VAT) has promoted many measures to push up the sector, particularly the promotion programme-called “Vietnam’s Impression”. The campaign has created an overall strength from management units to tourism firms in the whole country. 

 

Since the end of 2008, the number of international arrivals to Vietnam has reduced obviously. In the first six months of this year, the country was estimated to have welcomed merely 1.89 million foreign visitors, down over 19 per cent on year. However, the number of domestic tourists remained relatively stable. With the policy of increasing the amount of domestic visitors as a key task of the campaign, the domestic tourism is trending to grow and almost all tourism companies are considering this as new development strategy to make up for the shortage of foreign visitors.         

 

Since March this year, the domestic tourism market has become eventful. The promotion campaign has really attracted the attention of domestic visitors. Many people thought that this is an opportunity for them to make a tour because the all-in expense for many domestic tours had decreased by 10 per cent-30 per cent against last year. The Vietnam Airlines is also lowering the price of its domestic flights at a soft level. 

 

Immediately after dealing with the scarcity of tours on the occasion of April 30, travel companies have started building summer tourism programmes. This year, the number of tourists did not fall down and even in several companies, the figure has increased by some tens of a percentage. For the plan during the three-year summer, the Vietravel company is estimated to receive over 30,000 visitors, up around 20 per cent on year while the Fiditour company is planning to welcome 35,000 tourists, up 30 per cent on year. The figures are quite feasible because by now, there are many tours and visitors having registered till July and August.       

In Vietravel, the company has refused some tours due to it is not able to meet the demand of rooms and services.

 

The Redtour tourism company said many visitors have registered tours in August. The attractive destinations like Sapa, Nha Trang, Da Nang, Phu Quoc, Ha Long are all crowded. The Sapa city turns away nearly 2,000 visitors every week due to the overload.

 

Although the number of visitors is on the rise, their spending has been curbed greatly. In addition, the costs of input services have mostly been raised up. Thus, businesses said it is very difficult to reach the expected revenue and to remain the same profit of previous years.     

Seeking new destinations and designing new tours may be the best solution for travel companies at that time. Some companies initiated to combine some small tours into a huge tour. Others plan to introduce visitors more shopping services or cut down some destinations in tours in order to meet the various demand of tourists. In fact, the long-time tours are difficult to be accepted amid the context. 

 

During the summer tourism season, sea is still the best choice of visitors. Sea tours enjoy large numbers of customers almost all travel companies.

 

According to the tourism joint stock company Opentour, a majority of visitors choose Phan Thiet, Vung Tau, Nha Trang, Con Dao, Phu Quoc, Ha Long, Sapa, Quang Nam, Da Nang, Hue as attractive destinations. Moreover, others are impressed by new places like Bai Lu in Nghe An province, Hai Hoa in Thanh Hoa province, Thien Cam in Ha Tinh, Quan Lan in Quang Ninh province because of their new fangled beauty. 

Currently, some tours like staying overnight on Ha Long Bay are particularly attractive to visitors. The Ha Long Bay’s management board said there were 119,566 visitors having chosen for overnight tour on boast on the bay in the first five months, a light increase compared to the same period of last year.    

 

Apart from designing new tours, travel firms also lure visitors through many promotion programmes and attractive gifts.

 

Vietravel launched the super-promotion programme called “Free Tour in Summer-Satisfying the Whole Family”, which includes up to 270 free tours and many attractive gifts.    

 

The travel service company Saigontourist has over 100 domestic tours beginning from Ho Chi Minh City, Ha Noi, Da Nang to resort paradises like Nha Trang, Ha Long, Sapa, Phan Thiet, Phu Quoc and Con Dao. Particularly, the saving product IKO Travel expanded inter-tours such as Da Nang-Hoi An-Hue and Ha Noi-Ninh Binh-Ha Long. 

 

Although facing difficulties in attracting international visitors, it is hoped that the coming tourism season will be an opportunity for Vietnam’s tourism to overcome the crisis.