VietNamNet Bridge – Vietnamese travel firms have resumed tours to Thailand and provided many special offers to tourists though scattered protests are still seen in Bangkok.
Illustrative image. – File photo
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Tran Thi Bao Thu, marketing and communications manager at Fiditour, told the Daily that visitors are buying Thai tours again. Fiditour has operated tours to Bangkok and Pattaya for three groups of tourists since the month’s beginning and will operate more tours late this month, she added.
Bangkok-Pattaya tours of Vietravel are operated daily, and tours departing after Tuesday have been almost fully booked.
According to a representative of TST Tourist, protests in Thailand do not directly affect tourists and the Thai tourism market will recover quickly when Bangkok is open to visitors again.
Some travel firms in HCMC said that Thailand was favored by Vietnamese tourists thanks to a wide variety of entertainment services, shopping and leisure activities.
Recent statistics of the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) showed that the number of Vietnamese tourists coming to Bangkok by air dropped by 31.38% year-on-year in January due to the political chaos there.
To attract Vietnamese tourists, the HCMC office of TAT is working with travel firms to launch promotion programs in Bangkok’s nearby areas like Ayutthaya, Kanchanaburi, Khao Yai and Koh Chang as well as renew Bangkok-Pattaya tours.
Travel firms have also granted many special offers for customers buying Bangkok tours such as tour discounts or SIM cards.
In addition to granting a SIM card for use in Thailand for the first 500 tourists, Vietravel will offer a discount of over VND1 million for those buying five-day Thai tours on Qatar Airways flights this month.
TST Tourist has launched tours departing for Bangkok in March, in the Reunification Day-May Day holiday and in the summer at a price starting from VND4 million per tourist. Meanwhile, Saigontourist is offering an economical package tour to Thailand at VND6.999 million, VND3 million lower than the normal price.
In January when protests in Bangkok reached their peak, many Vietnamese tourists canceled their tours to Thailand despite low tour prices offered by travel firms. At that time, many firms reported a decline of up to 40% in the number of customers buying such tours and even suspended the tours to Bangkok.
Source: SGT