Outbound travel firms say tickets in Tet hard to find

Most of the travel firms in HCMC have prepared for oversea tours for the Lunar New Year holiday but it is not easy to buy tickets of international flights during the biggest festive season.

Tour operators say foreign airlines receive bookings and announce airfares early while local ones announce airfares later and have many strict requirements concerning deposits.

Short tours lasting four to five days and departing between the second day and the fifth day of the Lunar New Year are favored by customers, but buying tickets for such tours to Malaysia, Singapore and Dubai are now hard to find.

“As air-tickets for Dubai on the second day of the New Year have been fully booked, we are seeking tickets for flights on the third and the fourth days and still waiting for response from Etihad Airways and Emirates Airlines,” said Tu Quy Thanh, director of Lien Bang Travelink.

Ben Thanh Tourist has launched some oversea tours to gauge customers’ demand and will offer all Tet tours next week.

Most foreign airlines will consider the capacity of travel firms in organizing tours last Tet to determine the amount of air tickets to be sold to them this time. Therefore, some firms achieving high sales in the previous season but now offering fewer tours will still be able to book many tickets which will be then sold to other firms for a margin, said a tour operator.

According to some firms, the airfares in the coming Tet holiday increase slightly while the prices of overseas tours are equivalent to or only 10% higher than last year’s.

Da Lat ready to welcome visitors to tourism week

Da Lat city is on its last- minute preparation work to celebrate a long-awaited tourism week which is scheduled from December 27 to 31.

Major events including a festival marking the 120 th founding anniversary of Da Lat, the capital city of the Central Highland province of Lam Dong, the fifth Da Lat Flower Festival and a ceremony to launch the 2014 Central Highlands- Da Lat National Tourism Year will be held during the week.

To welcome its greatest event of the year, the local authority has upgraded pavements of all main 30 streets in the city. Lighting systems and signboards were set up to attract the public. The two new trading centres of Big C Da Lat and Da Lat New Market will also be put into operation to serve local people and tourists.

The city’s renowned tourist attractions such as Than Tho lake, Love valley, Prenn fall, Cam Ly fall and Xuan Huong lake were also renovated to better serve the visitors.

Local authorities are now building more parks, including Tran Quoc Toan park, the city’s first ever cherry blossom park, while renovating a range of ancient villas to host the tourists to the festival.

Khanh Hoa falls short of high-quality hotel rooms

The number of tourists coming to Khanh Hoa Province by air, especially on chartered flights to Nha Trang City, is on the rise, causing a severe shortage of high-quality accommodation facilities for tourists.

Nguyen Van Thanh, director of Khanh Hoa Tourism Promotion Center, said that around 470,000 international tourists came to the province in the January-October period, up 27% year-on-year.

Russian tourists traveling on chartered flights accounted for a high proportion and often stayed in three- to five-star hotels, pushing up the demand for high-quality hotel rooms, according to Thanh.

“Khanh Hoa has around 10,000 Russian tourists a month, so the supply of three- to five-star hotels is insufficient and travel firms have to seek one- or two-star rooms instead,” Thanh said.

“Khanh Hoa is expected to have an additional 4,000 three- to five-star rooms next year.”

Hoang Thi Phong Thu, chairwoman of Anh Duong Co. that partners with Pegas Touristik Co. to bring Russian tourists to Vietnam, said that as the supply of high-quality hotel rooms in Nha Trang is not enough, her company has to seek two-star hotels for tourists.

“We have signed contracts with over 20 hotels. We will still look for more rooms and may use one-star rooms if they meet our requirements,” Thu said.

Khanh Hoa has around 15,000 hotel rooms, with 6,000 meeting three-star standards or higher.

In addition to scheduled and chartered flights flying from Russia and South Korea, Khanh Hoa will welcome more flights taking tourists from Hong Kong and China in the coming time. As a result, it is not easy to supply tourists with sufficient good rooms.

Anh Duong Co. has struck deals with 140 hotels nationwide, mainly in coastal localities like Khanh Hoa, Binh Thuan, Ninh Thuan and Phu Quoc Island, to serve more Russian visitors to Vietnam.

In addition to Khanh Hoa, Phu Quoc is facing a shortage of hotels. “We need around 500 rooms a day but can find only 200 on Phu Quoc,” Thu said.

The first chartered flight taking Russian tourists to Phu Quoc is scheduled for December 17.

Pegas Touristik Co. plans to bring one million tourists to Vietnam in the next five years. Within six months, from last month to April, there will be over 100,000 Russians coming to Vietnam.

VN is the second in Asia in tourism development

Viet Nam stood behind China in tourism development in Asia, according to a survey of over 1.200 tourism managers worldwide.

The survey was recently published at the World Travel Market in London.  

Asia takes the lead in tourism development potentials, said Simon Press, Director of World Travel Market (WTM).

With an over 1.3 billion-population size, China tops the list of Asian countries; followed by Viet Nam, Myanmar, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Cambodia and the Philippines.

According to the Viet Nam News Agency, around 30 Vietnamese businesses joined the WTM to seek partners and advertize the country’s images.

Source: SGT/VNA/VNS