Vietnam - Service providers sting themselves by overcharging travelers

VietNamNet Bridge – Hotel, restaurants, resorts, carriers all try to overcharge travelers on holidays or in high tourism season, which has made domestic travelers turn their backs to domestic tours.

Travel firms have complained that the input service fees have been increasing dramatically, especially on rush days, thus making domestic tours less attractive to Vietnamese people. Travelers now tend to choose outbound tours, which have lower tour fees, instead domestic expensive and monotonous tours.

Boring tours

Nguyen Van My, Director of Lua Viet travel firm, complained that it’s now very difficult to sell domestic tours because of the high fees.

The fees of the tours to the central region on the May holiday, for example, jumped to 5-6 million dong per traveler, much higher than the tour fee to Cambodia at 3.6-3.7 million dong. Especially, the tour fees to Hanoi sometimes are even higher than that to Singapore.

Outbound tours also attract Vietnamese travelers with their diversified and interesting schedules. Meanwhile, domestic tours have not been diversified, thus making travelers bored.

In fact, travel firms realized the problem many years ago. However, they still hesitate to re-design tours, because this would be very costly. Meanwhile, their ideas could be easily “stolen” by others, which would lead to the loss.

Vietnamese travelers do not have the habit of booking tours many months or one year in advance. They only call to book tours in sudden inspiration. This results in the increases of the hotel room rates due to the overloading, forcing travelers to return home or move to other hotels.

My has emphasized that in the big difficulties, travel firms need to become more professional with long term development strategies, instead of “living from hand to mouth.” It’s now the right time for travel firms to join forces to develop, instead of spontaneously dumping the market to scramble for clients.

Regional countries are facing the same difficulties like Vietnam in the context of the global economic crisis. However, they still can stand firmly thanks to the professional development strategy and the state’s support. They have not only slashed tour fees to stimulate the demand, but have also diversified services to attract more travelers.

Local authorities turn deaf ear to overcharging evil

Tran Van Long, Director of Du Lich Viet, complained that domestic tours were sold very well in previous years, but the sale has been going very slowly so far this year.

Long has affirmed that this should not be blamed on the economic crisis, because this is the problem being faced by all countries in the world.

He has pointed out that service providers are killing themselves by overcharging travelers on peak days. They raise the hotel room rates, meal service and transport service fees on long holidays, when the travel demand increases. As a result, Vietnamese travelers have turned their backs to domestic tours.

Nguyen Thi Khanh, Deputy Chair of the HCM City Tourism Association, has affirmed that local service providers still can overcharge travelers because the local authorities turn a deaf ear on the problem.

“The fact that local authorities sell excursion tickets to travelers and visitors to Ha Long Bay has badly affected the image of a destination which has been recognized as one of the natural wonders,” Khanh said.

The HCM City Tourism Association plans to work out with local authorities to call on local service providers to reduce the service fees, so as to help travel firms slash tour fees. After Vietnam Airlines slashes the airfare by 40 percent, other service providers also need to slash their service fees, so that the domestic tour fees can be reduced.

Source: NLD

Business & Investment Opportunities 
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. We also propose Higher Education, as a bridge between educational structures and industries, by supporting international programmes. Many thanks for visiting www.yourvietnamexpert.com and/or contacting us at contact@yourvietnamexpert.com

Dear Reader,

May I invite you to visit our new blog: IIMS-Asean http://iims-asean.blogspot.com/

News and activities of the International Institute of Medicine and Science Asean Chapter of IIMS, Inc. California, USA - Health care, Life Science, Education, Research, Philanthropy. Asean is the economic organisation of ten countries located in South East Asia: Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. IIMS is a non-profit organization.