Booking for outbound tours increases sharply

Preliminary statistics of major travel agencies showed that the number of people booking outbound tours to welcome New Year Festival saw a year-on-year increase of 20 percent.
The increase was attributed to a series of discount programmes abroad.
The tourists mainly booked tours to the Republic of Korea , Thailand , China’s Hong Kong and Macau , Malaysia and Singapore.
Saigontourist has been the first travel agency to offer overseas tours with more than 50 programmes in five continentals. The most special programme will be “Hello Turkey-New Year 2011” with 10 days of many activities of Turkish culture.
The tourism company also opened a tour to South Africa and a New Year tour to Australia , the country welcomes new year at the earliest time in the world. Customers of this tour will have an opportunity to see fireworks above Sydney quay.
Saigontourist marketing official Doan Thi Thanh Ha revealed that over 1,000 tourists have so far booked for abroad tours at the company.
The number of people registered for overseas tours through the Vietravel office in Hanoi and the Hanoi Redtours also climbed to about 700.
Meanwhile, the number of visitors booking for domestic tours by the end of the year was low. Saigontourist said that its number of visitors for domestic tours was equal to 30 percent of abroad tours.
According to the Vietnam Administration of Tourism, the tourism sector had to date fulfilled the goal of welcoming 4.2 million foreign arrivals in 2010 and the total number of foreign arrivals to Vietnam is expected to hit 5 million, an increase of 18 percent over 2009.