The peak tourist season of inland travel often lasts from the end of April to the end of August. According to many travel companies, sea travel still dominates others in the summer. However, tourism trends have changed significantly.
The representatives of some big travel companies say tourists recently started turning their attention to a new kind of tourism, luxury medical treatment areas.
Tran Van Mau, an officer of Inland Market department of Hanoi- based Vietnam Tourism Company, said most tourists are charmed by the luxury areas, especially resorts, villas, etc. There has been a tendency to family groups to hire vehicles to go to the resorts.
As stated by Inland tourism department of Hanoi Tourism company, most likely the number of luxury tourists will increase dramatically in the summer of 2007. This is a good signal, yet raises concern about an overload of tours and hotel room price upheaval. According to Hanoi Toserco, a central travel company, it is extremely difficult in the peak tourist season to book hotels for common tours, let alone other kinds of tourism.
The branch representatives of Van Chai Resort (located in Sam Son, Thanh Hoa province), Tuan Chau (Quang Ninh province), V-Resort (Hoa Binh province) report that this kind of overload has never occurred except in tourism season when, occasionally, there are too many customers booking rooms to meet registered bookings.
Along with well-known Northern landscapes such as Ha Long Bay, Do Son, Sam Son, Cua Lo, etc. established tours in the Central and Southern region also increase rather strongly. According to Transviet, a travel company, there are many agencies and organizations booking Southern tours over the summer holiday.
Besides the tourist boards, the number of individual travelers also has grown remarkably. Up to now, travel companies have not set specific prices for each tour, however tour price is expected to increase by 20- 25 per cent, compared with 2006. “The reason is the petrol price increase, leading tour price to increase,” says Quoc Vinh, Director of Thanh Nien travel Ltd.
Tran Thanh Nga, Deputy Chief of Tourism Inland department of Vietnam tourism and international trade joint stock company (Vinatour) pointed out that most travel transport companies face higher transport cost than earlier in the year. Previously, the transport cost was counted by kilometre (km), but now it is based on trip routes. The inland transport cost is estimated to make up 35-40 per cent of total tour price. Otherwise, the fluctuation of tour selling price, in Nga’s opinion, often depends on the period of time, such as weekend, important events or festivals, and tour prices will always shift based on the number of tourists. After all, it is necessary for travel companies to set a reasonable price by devising a specific plan, for instance, if they want to celebrate a tour in the “Lang Co- the Sea Legend” festival in May or in “Da Nang Sea” festival in July they have to reserve hotel rooms from earlier in the year to avoid price hikes. “Anyway, these travel companies are on a knife edge because if a tour doesn’t sell they will lose a considerable deposit,” says Nga
It is foreseen that foreign tourism will have a significant increase because travel companies have fostered their sales promotion for a more acceptable price. Last year, tours of Thailand were at the top of the foreign tours, but this year in competition with a series of tours of China, Malaysia, Singapore, etc. particularly Cambodia, which is anticipated to increase suddenly for its reasonable price, low cost and comfortable traveling.
V. Anh
Vietnamese
