Disjointed promotion hurting tourism sector, say operators

Ineffective co-operation among tourism businesses in implementing stimulus packages is hurting the industry, tour operators say.
Based on current bookings, popular operators like Fiditour, Ben Thanh and Lien Bang estimate a 10 to 15 per cent fall over last year in the number of visitors.
HCM City-based Saigontourist Travel Service Co, which has around 80 per cent of the international tourist market, said it would serve around 32,000 visitors this season, a 6 to 7 per cent year-on-year decrease.
According to the General Statistics Office, the number of international visitors went down 16.6 per cent year-on-year to 2.77 million in the first nine months of this year.
During this period, there was a decrease in visitors from eight of ten countries and territories that are considered Viet Nam’s traditional markets – the Chinese mainland, the US, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Malaysia and Thailand.
The number of visitors from the Chinese mainland, South Korea and Japan fell particularly sharply during the period, by 32 per cent, 20 per cent and 14.5 per cent respectively.
The fall in arrivals has seen low occupancy rates at hotels nationwide.
The marketing director of a four-star said occupancy rates usually peaked in November, but bookings for the month have only reached 50 per cent so far.
Tao Van Nghe, general director of the five-star Majestic Hotel in HCM City, said the occupancy fell 17 per cent in the first nine months over 2008, and would only increase slightly in the coming months.
While Viet Nam’s tourism sector is struggling to revive itself, its Thai counterpart is doing much better. Bookings to Thailand are up for the coming winter season, raising hopes of the kingdom’s tourism recovery, said leading Travel Trade newspaper – TTG Asia.
Thailand has received a boost with increased air links and frequencies, particularly to Bangkok and Phuket, the paper said, noting that Air Berlin flights between Germany and Thailand were fully booked of late.
Arrivals from Viet Nam’s main markets like the Chinese mainland, Hong Kong, Japan and South Korea have also increased, according to the Association of Thai Travel Agents.
Saigontourist blamed the downward trend in European tourist arrivals on the global financial crisis and economic recession.
But the fact is that tourists tend to cut down travel costs instead of travel demand, say experts, noting that attractive promotion programmes for several worldwide destinations, including Southeast Asia, have lured a lot of European and American tourists.
Tour operators stress that there is little or no cooperation between local tourism businesses so it is difficult to keep prices competitive.
Decrease
They say this is one of the reasons for the decrease in foreign arrivals to Viet Nam. After nine months of implementing the "Impressive Viet Nam" programme that aimed to give a fillip to the tourism industry, the results are below par, operators say.
"Although the tour price has decreased by 30 per cent compared with the previous year, it is still 20 per cent higher than other countries in the region," said Tu Quy Thanh, general manager of Lien Bang Tourist Co.
Vo Anh Tai, director of Saigontourist, said the high prices resulted from the lack of cooperation among travel agents, airlines, hotels, as well as travel service providers to create package tours at competitive prices.
Tour operators singled out hotel room rents as being the main culprit in the high prices of tour packages in the country.
They need a lot of hotels at every destination on a Trans-Viet tour, but hotels in Nha Trang and Phan Thiet are always fully booked at weekends and offer no price discounts.
Even in HCM City, which has more competition, the room rates have only gone down slightly.
According to real estate services provider CB Richard Ellis, five-star hotels in HCM City have cut rates by 13 per cent from the previous quarter to an average of US$118 per night. But corresponding prices in Thailand obtained by Vietnamese tourism company are only around $80 per night.
Tran The Dung, a Fiditour executive, said a typical tour package comprised visits to popular destinations, but this was insufficient to attract clients when other countries were offering more innovative products.
Fiditour is preparing to welcome a group of students from a Singapore university. Besides visiting tourism spots, the package includes knowledge exchange with students of the HCM City University of Technology and a fact-finding tour of some factories.
To be able to offer such packages, tour operators had to try hard and reach agreements with all parties concerned, like factory leaders, Dung said.
In order to make an eco-tourism package more interesting, operators have to arrange for tourists to cultivate rice seedlings, for instance, Dung said, noting that several preparatory steps had to be taken, including getting permission from local authorities, and coming to arrangements with farmers.
While there are several incentives being offered by Vietnamese tour operators and travel agents, like offering SIM cards with 30 minutes of free international calls, the industry lacked cohesive promotion campaigns that would be effective across the board, one travel agent said.
Without this, the industry will continue to face an uphill struggle in an increasingly competitive market, he added.