Demand for travel continues to rise in the lead up to the forthcoming holidays at the end of April.
Despite Reunification Day on April 30, and International Labour Day on May 1 being over a month away, several domestic and outbound tours are already fully booked.
Tours fully booked
Quoc, a trade union official in HCM City's Thu Duc District said “We planned to travel to Danang for the holiday period and booked the tour in February. Now we just want to add a few more people to the trip, but the travel agency said it’s impossible”.
According to a survey carried out by Dan Tri/ DTiNews reporters, travel demand in HCM City has increased by 15% - 20%.
Manager of Vietravel’s Department of Communications, Nguyen Minh Man said, “Up to now, many of our tours are already fully booked, and we’ve reached 70% capacity on the remainder. We’re trying to expand our capacity in order to meet rising demand. We expect to serve around 25,000 tourists during this holiday, up 20% from the same period last year”.
Danang attracts a lot of tourists thanks to the upcoming international fireworks contest
SaigonTourist have sold 65% out of a total of 16,000 seats planned for the holidays, a rise of between 10% and 15% from a year earlier.
FidiTour only started selling tours for the holidays two weeks ago, but 40% of their service has been booked.
Sharp rise in outbound tours
Nguyen Thi Tuyet Mai, Director of FidiTour Company’s Department of Communication, said, “This year, we have seen a sharp rise in the number of tour groups from organisations or businesses. The situation is marked in contrast to previous years when people often avoided travelling during holidays due to overcrowding and price hikes”.
Mai added that her company has co-ordinated with airline companies to increase the number of flights to popular destinations of Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia to meet rising demand.
In addition to domestic tours and outbound tours to Southeast Asian countries, many companies and families have chosen more expensive tours to Japan, South Korea, the US, and Europe. A tourist firm has recorded a double demand for tours to the US.
Despite the recent hikes in fuel prices and transportation fees, many travel agencies have confirmed that they would maintain their tour prices while some others planned to increase prices by only 5% as they have signed contracts with transportation firms in advance.
Ha Long expects to host large numbers of tourists for its carnival