Japan’s tsunami shaking Vietnam’s tourism industry

The earthquake and tsunami in Japan has led to a series of tours to Vietnam having been canceled. Meanwhile, Vietnamese travel firms say no traveler has called to cancel tours to Japan.
The spokesman of the national flag air carrier Vietnam Airlines on March 14 said “the earthquake and tsunami in Japan has affected the flights from Japan to Vietnam.” A lot of tours to Vietnam have been canceled. Right after the national calamity occurred, Vietnam Airlines flights departing from Japan were delayed. It is expected that the number of passengers who fly from Japan to Vietnam will decrease in the time to come.
The spokesman said that “the natural calamity will badly affect the air carrier’s revenue, since the Vietnam-Japan air route always brings the highest turnover among international air routes.”
Vietnam Airlines also said that “the unstable electricity and fixed telephone line supply in Japan has caused difficulties to people in following procedures for the flights.” Vietnam Airlines plans to not collect fees from the passengers who change schedules for the flights from Japan to Vietnam.
Meanwhile, Vietnamese travel firms have confirmed that a lot of Japanese travelers have canceled tours.
Tien phong newspaper quoted representative of TNT-JTB, a joint venture of a Vietnamese and a Japanese travel firms, which has office in HCM City, as saying that “the travel firm’s tour guides, referring to schedules, automatically go to the airport to pick up travelers, though they do not know if Japanese travelers will come or not.” The representative said “the travel firm cannot contact the Japanese partners to update information about the trips of Japanese travelers, who booked tours.”
“To date, we still cannot calculate how many Japanese travelers have canceled tours. But, we are sure the number is very high. Most of our tour guides failed to fetch Japanese travelers from the airport,” he said.
He also revealed that a lot of TNT-JTB’s Japanese clients decided to return to Japan sooner than they had planned.
Nguyen Thanh Son, a senior executive of Apex travel firm, complained that eight of the 10 tours slated for last weekend were canceled. He said that “Apex has successfully contacted the Japanese partners.”
“However, we are still waiting for the information from the Japanese partners about if the groups of 400 and 500 Japanese travelers, who booked tours to Vietnam in April and May, would cancel the tours,” Son said.
In 2010, Vietnam received nearly 450,000 Japanese tourists. Japan is now the third biggest inbound tourism market just after China and South Korea. In the first two months of the year, 92,000 Japanese tourists came to Vietnam, increasing by 130 percent in comparison with the same period of the last year. Japanese are considered high income travelers who have high spending level in Vietnam. Therefore, the reduction of Japanese travelers in the upcoming months will badly affect Vietnam’s tourism
Regarding outbound tours, travel firms in HCM City say they have no tours to Japan at the time when the earthquake and tsunami occurred. However, they are worried that thousands of Vietnamese travelers, who have booked tours to Japan to attend the cherry flower festival, may cancel the tours. The departure has been scheduled for the end of March or early April.
“No traveler has canceled tours to Japan, but travel firms are still updating information,” said Tuyet Mai from DI Fiditour, affirming that Vietnamese people have not traveled to Japan yet on Dau tu, because it is now not the cherry flower season.
“April is the highest season of traveling to Japan, because cherry flowers blossom in this month, which really attracts travelers. The tours to Japan in this month have been fully booked. However, due to the earthquake, we still cannot contact the partners. I think tours will be delayed until everything becomes stable,” Mai said.
As for Saigontourist, Vo Anh Tai, Director of the company, said no tour cancellation cases have been reported, because the Japanese cities which Vietnamese travelers plan to visit were not affected by the natural calamity.
Representatives of DL Vietran said “the earthquake and tsunami stricken areas are located in the northeast of Japan. Meanwhile, tourism cities such as Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto are located in the south. Therefore, he does not see high possibility of tour cancellation.”