Large custom makes travel firms worried

The hotel room rates, car rentals and meal service fees have all increased dramatically; thus, putting a heavy burden on travel firms.
Travel firms now can sigh with relief that the number of travelers will be high on the April 30 holiday, despite the high inflation which has forced many people to fasten their belt.
According to travel firms, the number of travelers who have booked domestic tours to Da Nang, Nha Trang, Da Lat and Phan Thiet, are 20 percent higher than that of the last year’s holiday. A similar increase has also been reported for outbound tours, including the ones to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and China.
Especially, a firework festival that will take place in the central city of Da Nang on April 29 and 30. Therefore, the number of travelers planning to go to the sea city has increased sharply.
Le Toan Thanh Tung, Head of the Tour Operation of Vitour, said to date, 3000 travelers have booked tours to Da Nang with Vitour, an increase of 200 percent over the same period of the last year.
“It is really good news for travel firms that the number of travelers does not decrease, even though travel firms have to raise the tour fees by 10-15 percent in the context of high inflation,” said Nguyen Thi Thanh Giang from Newstartour.
Nevertheless, the large custom has made travel firms worried, because the high number of travelers will lead to the scarcity of hotel rooms, higher car rentals and service fee increases.
According to Tung, “the room rates at 1-3 star hotels are about 300,000-600,000 dong per night, but the rates have soared to 1-3 million dong for April 30 holiday.” The new circumstances have forced Vitour to sign contracts soon with 4-5 star hotels soon, because luxurious hotels do not make big changes in the hotel room rates. Meanwhile, Vitour has to accept to hire coaches to carry travelers with the rental three times higher than that in ordinary days.
However, travel firms have complained that even if they accept the higher rentals, they cannot hire enough coaches, because the existing number of coaches with 45 seats in Da Nang is not big enough to satisfy all. Vitour, for example, is considering hiring smaller coaches, or using the coaches from neighboring provinces.
Anticipating the problems arising on holidays, Hanoitourist said it has to “choose travelers to serve”.
Tong Thu Hien, Deputy Director of Hanoitourist, said that the travel firm plans to serve the number of travelers higher by 10 percent than the last year. Besides, Hanoitourist only designs long distance tours with aircraft being the main means of transport, including the ones on Hanoi-Da Nang, Hanoi-Nha Trang. Meanwhile, the firm only serves loyal clients on short tours like the one from Hanoi to Cua Lo beach.
Vu The Binh, former Director of the Travel Department under the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), said that the current tourism infrastructure items in localities still cannot satisfy the demand, when the number of travelers increases sharply on peak holidays, while the sharp service fee increases always burden travel firms.
In fact, travel firms have raised tour fees already, but the tour fee increases are not big enough to cover the increases of expenses. Therefore, travel firms have to cut some kinds of services in their tours. They have been warned that the cuts may make travelers unsatisfied with the services of travel firms.
Dr Ha Van Sieu, Director of the Tourism Research Institute under VNAT, also said that service providers should not raise the service fees too sharply, or they will lose clients.