Online Travel Vietnam: The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday, or Tet, turned out to be a golden opportunity for local travel agencies and operators of entertainment and tourism parks to make money in the new season.
Numerous large tour operators in HCMC such as Ben Thanh Tourist, Fiditourist, Vietravel, Saigontourist and Lien Bang Travelink reported good performance during the Tet holiday for both outbound and inbound tourism segments.
Saigontourist last Thursday had up to 40 tourist groups leaving for local tours as the second peak day of the company in the Lunar New Year. Meanwhile, its busiest day is the second day of the first lunar month, or last Tuesday, with 60 groups totaling 2,100 customers to tourist attractions like Nha Trang, Phan Thiet, Dalat, Ninh Chu, Buon Ma Thuot and Tuy Hoa.
From January 23 to 30 only, Saigontourist has mobilized over 270 tourist buses of 25 to 45 seats to serve tour buyers. The firm has received a total of up to 20,000 travelers including the number of customers for outbound tourism, up by 20% from the previous Tet holiday.
According to Vietravel, the number of tour buyers at the company has surged by 30% versus the Tet holiday last year, with about 30,000 tourists in total. The most attractive tours for clients are tours to Hanoi, Ha Long, Sapa, Bai Dinh, Trang An, Hue, Phong Nha and Quang Binh among others.
Meanwhile, outbound tours with familiar destinations like Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and South Korea have attracted many local travelers. Fiditours said it had welcomed around 18,000 customers in this year's Tet holiday, a year-on-year increase of 24%, with 10,000 tourists for inbound tours and 8,000 for outbound ones.
Big tourism centers at home like Binh Thuan, Nha Trang and Ha Long have also experienced a busy business season during the holiday. The Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism of the south-central coast province of Binh Thuan recorded the number of travelers staying overnight at some 71,000 from January 21 to Sunday, up 21.2% year-on-year.
Similarly, the number of visitors to the coastal city of Nha Trang as of last Friday was roughly 30,000 persons while that in the Ha Long tourism center during the Tet holiday has been up to 15,000 a day.
Source: SGT
