Selling a series of discounted tours during the Lunar New Year 2024, Ms. Luong Le Thu (a travel agency employee in Hanoi) said that due to some vacant spots in foreign tours, travel companies are lowering prices and offering deals to attract more customers.
Many discounted tours are available near the Tet holiday. (Photo: Vietluxtour)
“These tours mainly go to some neighboring countries in Southeast Asia and Asia. Travel companies sell at original prices to fill the tours that were planned in advance. Therefore, if you buy a tour at this time, you can save a few million VND,” Ms. Thu said.
According to Ms. Thu, some tours are heavily discounted. We can mention the 5-day 4-night Malaysia and Singapore tour, departing on the 2nd day of Tet from Hanoi, priced at 12.9 million VND (old price of 15.9 million VND); the 6-day 5-night Dubai tour priced at 32.9 million VND; the 5-day 4-night Thailand tour, departing on the 3rd day of Tet from Hanoi, priced at 7.5 million VND (old price of 9.9 million VND)…
Explaining the reason for the discounted tours during Tet, Mr. Pham Duy Nghia, CEO of Vietfoot Travel, said that due to the current economic situation in the country and the world crisis, people will tighten their spending to ensure their finances. Therefore, travel demand is the first factor that people choose to cut back on.
“The number of Tet travelers this year is only half of last year. We also predicted a decrease in the number of visitors, so we proactively reduced the number of tours on sale. However, currently, the number of customers only reaches about 2/3 of the offered spots,” Mr. Nghia informed.
According to Mr. Nghia, due to the large number of vacant spots, businesses are forced to offer promotions and discounts to attract customers to buy the tours, even at breakeven or loss, to meet their planned number of tourists and avoid the situation where tours have to be cancelled.
“Tour agencies can accept selling at cost or even at a loss in order to have enough customers to meet the plan, avoiding tour cancellations,” Mr. Nghia said.
According to some travel agencies in Hanoi, the discounted tours during Tet are mainly tours to foreign countries. Currently, Vietnamese tourists can easily travel abroad to some markets such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore because there are many flight routes to Vietnam.
“These foreign markets have costs ranging from a few million to over 10 million VND, so they are affordable and are chosen by many customers,” a travel agency in Hanoi said.
After choosing the 5-day 4-night Thailand tour, departing on the 3rd day of Tet with a price of 7.5 million VND/person for a honeymoon, Ms. Ngo Thi Xuyen said that initially, she and her husband planned to travel in the summer. However, after seeing discounted tours on the internet, they discussed and decided to go during the Tet holiday.
“Tourist tours departing on the 3rd day of Tet allow us to celebrate the holiday with our family and go on a honeymoon trip after the wedding. I think the itinerary is reasonable and the price is discounted, so I decided to book the tour right away,” Ms. Xuyen said.
