Vietnam Tourism Industry Striving to Boost Demand

Ms Huynh Thi Thuy Kieu, Director of An Giang Travel Company revealed that this year, not many An Giang tourists chose Vung Tau, Mui Ne or Nha Trang but instead swarmed to Ha Tien and Phu Quoc because of the lower tour price to these locations.

 

Mr Tran The Dung, Deputy Director of The He Tre Travel Company remarked that tourists tend to choose tours to nearby locations in order to save money. They also scrutinise deals offered by different travel companies, thus raising the need for these companies to offer competitive prices.

 

Vietravel Company said that they already had to apply promotional policies on nearly 50 local and foreign tours to try and boost demand. Due to the high cost of opening new offices (rental fees, employees’ salaries), only a handful of travel companies such as Saigontourist, Vietravel, Du Lich Viet etc. properly carry out their promotional programs. The majority still choose to expand their customer base through their websites. Besides well-known websites, there appears to be a variety of other websites such as tourmoila.com by Da Ngoai Lua Viet, tourgiatot.com of Fiditour, tourgiochot.com of Du Lich Viet etc. which target bargain hunters.

 

Despite existing collaboration with Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air to boost demand, travel companies still need to spend more effort to cater to the “distant, unique and cheap tour” mentality of their customers. VietTravel allows customers to create their own pictures of scenic spots in the Northwestern region, such as Lao Chai Village, O Quy Ho Hill, Pha Din Hill, Dai Yem Waterfall etc. Da Ngoai Lua Viet uploaded the yellow paddy field pictures of the Northwestern region, while at the same time reducing the minimum number of tourists per tour, from 12 to 9 people per tour.

 

Travel companies also introduce new events into foreign tours. For example, the Singapore tour is supplemented with a visit to the solar-powered garden (Bay South Garden) with the name “tour to billion-dollar solar-powered garden.” Tourists have the chance to visit 10 energy trees approximately 50m in height with wide canopies to absorb solar energy during the day, in order to light themselves up during the night.

 

Individuals usually rent a hotel room longer and spend more, but the number has seen a 7.9 percent decline in the customer group who rent hotels in 3-5-star luxurious spa resorts. Mr Gaurav Bhushan, Investment and Development Director of Accor Corporation in the Asia-Pacific region concluded that tourists currently spend less than average for a hotel. Individual and local tourists represent 50-60 percent of potential customers and are among the groups that hotel chains under Accor’s management are most interested in. In order to achieve the set target to attract 80 percent of individual and local customers, Ibis Saigon South reduced the daily rental of their hotel rooms to only VND1 million per room.

 

Fiditour also revealed that customers registered for the Con Dao tour in August keeps increasing because Sai Gon Con Dao Resort has collaborated with travel companies and airlines to implement the “Buy air tickets, get free hotel rooms” and “Buy two adult tickets, get one children ticket” programs for the Con Dao tour. With only VND6,300,000, customers are entitled to a two-way ticket to and from Con Dao, one night at a resort and airport collection. In order to fill the capacity for their hotels in Bau Truc Resort (formerly known as Den Gion Resort in Ninh Thuan), Dong Thuan Travel JSC has offered the most competitive prices to individual customers, with VDN750,000 for one night at a 3-star hotel and VND950,000 at a 4-star hotel. Bau Truc Resort also prepared attractive pricing packages to local tourists (VND2-2.5 million per person for three days and two nights at the resort, meals included and two-way transfer from Ho Chi Minh City to Ninh Thuan and a visit to Nam Cuong sand dune, grape and apple gardens and job-specific villages).

 

Mr Huynh Nguyen Nhat, Director of Dong Thuan Travel Company admitted that many travel companies have to accept a lower profit to attract their customers, because the most important thing is to encourage customers to register for services at hotels and high-end resorts.