Travel firms trying to stimulate demand with lower tour fees

      Domestic overland tours have seen fees decrease by 15-20 percent, while airway tours have seen fees down by 30 percent.
Anticipating sharp falls in the numbers of travellers in groups and delegations this year as businesses, facing financial difficulties, try to cut expenses, travel firms have shifted to focus on individual and family clients. In order to lure more clients, travel firms have been trying to offer more impressive destinations on their tour itineraries and accept lower profit.
Lowering tour fees, stimulating demand
Luong The Vy, Deputy Director of Vietnamtourism, said that his company has to slash tour fees in order to stimulate demand in the context of the economic downturn. Vy said tour fees have dropped by 10-30 percent compared to last year.
Travel firms have slashed tour fees after they tried to cut expenses and Vietnam Airlines accepted slashing airfares for summer flights. V-Travel now, for example, is offering a tour to Phu Quoc Island at 2.99 million dong per traveller, down by 500,000 dong.
Meanwhile, Fiditour has also slashed fees by 500,000 dong on a summer tour to Con Dao Island to 3.1 million dong.
Airway tours organised by The He Tre Travel Firm have also seen sharp fee decreases. For example, travellers on the HCM City-Hanoi-Ha Long-China route now have to pay 5.27 million dong per traveller instead of 8.1 million dong. Meanwhile, the fee for HCM City-Da Nang-My Son-Ba Na-Hue-Phong Nha Cave has decreased to 3.475 million dong from 5.3 million dong.
Travel firms all say that tour fees could be slashed more if other service providers agreed to cut service fees. Currently, the vehicle chartering fee remains high, while only several hotels have made modest hotel room rate cuts of 10-15 percent.
Travel firms have also rushed to launch promotion campaigns to lure more clients. Clients who book tours for second and subsequent times will enjoy the tour fee discounts of 5-10 percent. Clients who book tours for groups of three or four will also enjoy the discount of 10 percent. Those who book airway tours will get gifts such as taxi coupons or be put into lucky draws and get valuable gifts in cash or free trips.
As outbound tours have witnessed fees decreasing sharply, a lot of Vietnamese travellers have chosen tours abroad. Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea and Cambodia prove to be the most favourite destinations. A 5-day package tour to South Korea has been slashed from 15.4 million dong to 11.3 million dong ($669), while an 8-day tour fee to Australia has been slashed from 37.2 million dong to 31.2 million ($1,840) and 4-day tour to Singapore from 7.4 million to 6.4 million dong.
Thanks to promotion campaigns, travel firms have reported satisfactory numbers of travellers. Most firms have reported a 10 percent increase in numbers of clients, while some others, including Fiditour, have seen the numbers of travellers up by 25 percent.
According to Tran The Dung, deputy head of the domestic travel group that joins the demand stimulus programme initiated by the Vietnam National Administration, to date, 40 travel firms have committed to slash tour fees by 10-15 percent. Vietnam Airlines continues slashing airfares for summer flights by 60 percent for the HCM City-Hanoi route and 50 percent for the Hue and Da Nang route. To date, 80 hotels have committed to slash hotel room rates.