Tourists visit and experience the cross-forest tourism product at Mui Ca Mau. (Photo: Kim Há/TTXVN)
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The Ministry of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs has proposed swapping working days to allow people to have a five-day break for the upcoming April 30 – May 1 holiday.
Tourism and travel businesses are very much in favor of the five-day break as it would be an opportunity for people to relax, recharge and boost economic development, and they will have more chances to promote and push better tourism tour products to vacationers.
The holiday is really a “golden” opportunity for travel businesses to kick off the domestic tourism peak season and many other service business sectors.
General Director of Wondertour Le Cong Nang shared that the five-day holiday will impact people’s travel demands. Due to the longer break, instead of short-day outings, families will prioritize four- or five-day trips that are low cost.
Land tours to Ha Long, Cat Ba, Sam Son, Sa Pa, Moc Chau, Ninh Binh, etc., or air tours to Da Nang, Thailand, Singapore with reasonable costs will be chosen by families.
Mr. Le Cong Nang also stated that tourist cities like Phu Quoc, Da Nang, Can Tho, Quy Nhon, and Hue may see a decline in the number of visitors as airfares increase; the situation of few visitors may even have to be anticipated as airlines stop operating short routes (Bamboo Airways has stopped operating to Con Dao, Quang Binh, etc.).
Therefore, localities need to have plans to diversify products and sources of visitors. For example, Phu Quoc can exploit low-cost waterway tours to serve tourists from provinces in the South. Quang Binh can promote the exploitation of railway tours. On the other hand, it is very necessary for restaurants, hotels, and car companies to closely cooperate with travel businesses to create breakthrough products.
 Tourists experience the Hon Thom Island tourist area, Phu Quoc city, Kien Giang province. (Photo: Le Huy Hai/TTXVN)
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Mr. Truong Minh Tuan, General Director of HVN Travel, assessed that the extended five-day holiday is a good sign, promoting additional support for products that the travel agency has designed in advance and will soon “launch” to the market. However, if there had been an earlier plan, the agency would plan to develop tour products suitable for the time off and have enough time to prepare and advertise this product more widely.
Mr. Truong Minh Tuan thinks that functional agencies should decide on the number of holiday days earlier so that businesses can seize the opportunity to best serve the needs of visitors. HVN Travel has designed overseas tour products such as Dubai, Japan, Thailand, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, etc., before information was available that people would have a five-day break.
This does not change anything for tourists because airline tickets and services have been booked by HVN Travel in advance from three to four months; passengers will depart on the correct day and time.
The Vietnam Tourism Association also said that the increase in airfares is a challenge to the development of domestic tourism. Because airfares account for 40-60% of the composition of tour prices, higher ticket prices will push tour prices up accordingly. This will cause families and large groups of tourists to switch, instead of traveling far by plane, they will switch to nearby destinations, traveling by road, train, or private vehicle.
As soon as airlines increased the ceiling price of airfares, travel businesses flexibly changed the product structure. They introduced many domestic and international land tours, especially focusing on international tour routes with prices suitable for the general spending of customers such as tours to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, China, South Korea, etc.
According to Mr. Le Tan Thanh Tung, advisor to the Tourism and Event Center, Vitraco Transportation and Tourism Company (Da Nang), a five-day holiday is very beneficial to stimulating tourism demand. Travel agencies all have experience in welcoming visitors on this occasion and often design products within the framework from April 27 to the end of May 1.
The difficulty for tourism this year is that airfares have increased too high, causing difficulties for tourists, while service prices remain relatively stable. Therefore, domestic tourists mainly choose to travel short distances because plane tickets are not cheap and are also difficult to book.
To cope with the increase in airfares, Vitraco has designed a tour that travels by high-end sleeper bus with a journey to explore the Central Heritage, connecting the destinations of Da Nang-Hoi An-Hue-Quang Tri-Quang Binh. Along with that is an itinerary to explore Da Nang-Hue by train with the most beautiful railway in the world…
Thang Giang
