At the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Festival, companies offer hundreds of discounted tours for the summer tourist season, and foreign tours are the “most popular” because of their competitive prices.
At the 2024 Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Festival taking place from April 4 to 7, travel businesses offer many preferential prices for customers when “closing” tours and making early deposits for both domestic and international products. to heat up tourism demand before the two holidays of April 30 and summer.
On the first day of the event, travel companies said that foreign tours to Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia in the mid-range price segment are being “closed” the most.
Mr. Thi Quoc Duy, Director of BenThanh Tourist’s retail travel center, said that in the past two years, mid-range foreign tours and travel combos have shown no signs of cooling down. On April 30 and the upcoming summer, the company’s tours to Japan and Korea receive the most attention and close orders. Then there are Southeast Asia travel programs to Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia. Chinese tour routes are diverse in destinations and prices, from 9 to 19 million VND, and are also on the rise in the number of tourists booking during the summer.
“Foreign tours in Southeast Asia and Northeast Asia priced at 7-15 million VND continuously dominate domestic tours by air route because of their competitive prices,” Mr. Duy said.
At the Ho Chi Minh City tourism festival, travel agencies offer hundreds of domestic tours with discounts ranging from 1-3 million VND, however, the price after the discount is equivalent or insignificantly different from the price. foreign tour.
For example, the 5 days 4 nights East – Northwest tour, departing from Ho Chi Minh City, has a reduced price of about 8.9 million VND, higher than the 5 days 4 nights Thailand tour to Bangkok – Pattaya, the latter price reduced by nearly 7 million VND. The Singapore – Malaysia tour and Taiwan tour have the same price, about 10.7-11.7 million VND, 1-3 million VND higher than some domestic tours.
Ms. Ngoc Thanh, 60 years old, living in Ho Chi Minh City, said she came to the Tourism Festival to look for tour programs to China in the summer, because this country has many diverse destinations in terms of landscape, culture, service. Before the epidemic, Ms. Thanh used to go on popular tours in China such as Beijing – Shanghai – Hangzhou. This year many destinations in China are open, so she plans to book a tour to Kunming and Lijiang, costing about 20-21 million VND.
Ms. Hanh said that she has been to almost all destinations in the country from South to North, and the experience is the same most years, while “the price is not much cheaper than going abroad, so I choose to explore new countries,” she said.
Ms. Van Nhi, from Vung Tau, said she is looking for tours to Taiwan on April 30 for her family of 4. Her family chose to travel abroad this vacation because they had never been to Taiwan and were afraid of crowded scenes at domestic tourist attractions.
“I think the price of a tour to Taiwan is not too high, about 11-12 million VND per person, the cost is equivalent to a 4-5 star vacation in Phu Quoc or a tour to the North, suitable for the family’s finances,” she said. Khanh said.
Travel companies said that rising domestic air tickets pushed up tour prices on some routes in the Central and East-Northwest regions, causing Vietnamese tourists to choose to go abroad or change their direction to book road tours such as going to Phan Thiet and Mui Ne. . From here, guests move to Phan Rang, Nha Trang.
Mr. Quoc Duy said that the obvious change in the domestic tourism market this summer is the return of train travel. The tour to experience the 5-star train line from Hue to Da Nang has just been put into operation and has a high number of interested visitors.
Inside the 5-star Hue – Da Nang tourist train, March 26. Image: Vo Thanh
“Before 2019, domestic air tours had a clear difference compared to train tours when 80% of customers chose to fly, 20% chose to travel by train or road to save time. But this year, the proportion Customers choose to experience the train, accounting for 40-45%,” Mr. Duy said.
Ms. Huynh Phan Phuong Hoang, Deputy General Director of Vietravel Tourism Company, also commented that the train experience journey brings a new breeze to domestic tourism during the summer peak in the context of rising airfares. Since early January, the company has coordinated with Vietnam Railway Corporation to implement the 5-star train project across Vietnam. Currently, the company launches a 5-star train tour from Hue – Da Nang priced at 7.3 million VND, departing every Sunday.
Travel companies evaluating the potential summer domestic tourism market tend to focus mainly on the MICE tourist group (business and business travelers). In addition, the group of individual domestic travelers often choose self-sufficiency and have a habit of booking services close to the vacation date, 1-2 weeks in advance.