A sharp increase in holiday bookings

      Despite ‘tightening their belts’ due to the economic decline, both domestic and foreign tourists are predicted to rise during the coming four-day holiday in celebration of May Day and South Vietnam Liberation Day (April 30).
The stable price of domestic tours for this holiday has helped to raise the number of tourists on these tours by 10-20 percent against the same period last year.
Tours of between 300-500km are especially popular, says Mai Lan, head of market research for the Vietravel company in Hanoi.
Many organizations and offices are giving their employees time off to celebrate the occasion and travel agencies have designed a number of specific tours to cater for this group of tourists.
Saigontourist, a major tourism firm based in Ho Chi Minh City, has organized more than 100 tours, divided into three main packages – IKO Travel (economy), Premium Travel (luxury) and a traditional one designed exclusively for this holiday.
So far IKO Travel has been the most popular thanks to its reasonable prices and flexibility. A five-day IKO Travel trip from Hanoi to beauty spots in central Vietnam costs less than VND3.2 million.
Thuy Linh, a representative of Saigontourist, says that the number of people booking domestic tours has reached more than 4, 000 already.
Apart from domestic tours, there has been also a 10-15 percent rise in overseas tours. For prestigious firms that offer attractive tours and promotional programmes, the figure has reached 20-25 percent.
The Saigontourist branch in Hanoi has launched nearly 20 tours to countries such as Singapore, China, Cambodia, Japan, South Africa, and Egypt.
Vietravel’s four-day tour of the Republic of Korea costs only US$869 per tourist and the company is also discounting its tour of Shanghai in China by 20-25 percent.