Airlines and railways offer generous discounts to lure southbound tourists

Vietnamese air carriers Vietjet Air and Vietnam Airlines, and Saigon Railway Transport Joint Stock Company (JSC) have just unveiled their promotion programs that allow passengers to enjoy fare discounts of up to 98% when traveling from north to south.
These companies, together with dozens of tour operators in HCMC, planned to organize various tourism promotion programs under the theme of ‘Enjoying Spring in Saigon and the Southern Region’. The aim is to lure potential customers from other localities to HCMC in particular, and its neighboring provinces in general on off-peak flights or trains at Tet.
In particular, Vietjet will offer special discounts of between 12% and 98% on fares for a slew of flights connecting Hanoi, Hue, Danang, Pleiku, Dalat, Haiphong, and Phu Quoc with HCMC.
Saigon Railway Transport JSC would launch discounts of 50% on all rates as part of its tourism stimulus packages. The company is offering promotional fares for all north-south routes to the Saigon Railway Station from January 3 to 28, and routes in the opposite direction from February 1 to 18.
The national flagship carrier said passengers would be able to book round-trip tickets from VND2.3 million (US$101), with the first leg of Hanoi-HCMC service from now to January 27, and for the HCMC-Hanoi service from February 1. These flights will depart before 7:30 a.m. and after 6:30 p.m. The discount price is exclusive of 10% value-added tax and an extra charge of VND160,000 (US$7) per passenger.
Nguyen Thi Khanh, vice chairwoman of the HCMC Tourism Association, said this is the first time travel companies have teamed up with the transport sector to attract tourists from other localities to the south to celebrate Tet. Travelers will have a chance to visit HCMC, Phan Thiet, Vung Tau and some Mekong Delta provinces. Some enterprises are promoting tours from HCMC to the Mekong Delta for tourists to see what locals do in preparation for Tet.
Statistics from the HCMC Department of Tourism showed the city welcomed around 21.8 million domestic tourists last year. The figure is expected to rise to 24 million this year.