Tourism gathers speed early in 2024 | Travel

Hanoi (VNA) – A sudden surge in the number of overseas Vietnamese (OVs) booking domestic tours and the recovery of international arrivals right since the start of 2024 are
among positive signs promising a breakthrough year for the tourism industry.

Doan Thi
Thanh Tra, Director for marketing and communications of the Saigontourist travel
service company, said the number of overseas Vietnamese booking services
for the Lunar New Year (Tet) holidays via her company has risen “abnormally”.

OVs account
for up to 80% of all clients booking pre-Tet tours of Saigontourist and 60% of
those booking post-Tet tours.

The firm has never recorded such a large number of OV travellers before, which is even higher than in the pre-pandemic period of 2017 – 2018. Previously, OV
clients of Saigontourist were mainly middle- and old-aged persons, but the
surge in OV tourists, including many young ones, this year has really surprised
the company, she noted.

OV
tourists often book long tours, at least for five days and even eight to ten days.
They prefer cultural and experience tours of the central region (Da Nang, Hue,
Hoi An) and the northern region (Ninh Binh, Quang Ninh, northwestern provinces).
Most of these tours are package ones with relatively high prices.

Unlike
domestic or international visitors, each OV traveller returning to Vietnam for Tet
usually book at least two tours – one before Tet and another during or after this
biggest traditional festival, Tra told the Thanh nien (Young people) newspaper.

OVs now tend to return to the
homeland all year round, not only for Tet. Given this, Saigontourist is
developing particular products for this group of holidaymakers, she added.

Meanwhile,
Vietluxtour has also reported good growth in the number of OVs booking Tet
tours, its communications director Tran Thi Bao Thu said, noting that OV
clients of her company are middle-class ones and families using services at
four- to five-star resorts.

They tend to just relax and do not
have much need for sightseeing. This is a “niche market” that many travel
firms are capitalising on amid economic difficulties forcing families to cut
spending on holidays, she added.

In addition,
the tourism industry has also enjoyed an inflow of international travellers
since the start of 2024.

The island city of Phu Quoc, which experienced
poor performance in 2023, has witnessed a sudden increase in arrivals,
especially international ones, since the end of last year. It has welcomed
2,000-2,500 international visitors, over half of whom are from the Republic
of Korea, each day on average.

In particular, the debut of Cau Hon (Kiss
Bridge) and the Sunset Town entertainment complex there amid the festive season
warmed up the local tourism atmosphere in late 2023.

As a result, the Mekong Delta province
of Kien Giang, home to Phu Quoc, attracted more than 120,000 arrivals during
the 2024 New Year holidays, including over 15,000 foreigners, while the
occupancy rate at local tourism accommodation facilities reached 63.2% and
tourism revenue hit 369 billion VND (over 15 million USD), statistics show.

Ho Chi Minh City has also seen a large number of foreigners travelling around on these days. Ben Thanh Market, a
tourist magnet in this southern economic hub, has recorded many international
visitors, mainly Indian, Korean, Japanese, and European ones, coming to its
confectionary, coffee, apparel, and fashion accessory shops.

The municipal Tourism Department said
the city welcomed more than 46,500 international visitors during the recent New
Year holidays, shooting up 86.1% from the 25,000 during the same period of
2023. Particularly, cruise travellers who are high-end tourists from Europe,
the US, Australia, and Japan, are growing well.

Last year, 12.6 million international
tourists chose Vietnam as their holiday destination, rising almost 3.5-fold
from 2022 and exceeding the initial target.

For 2024, the country targets about
17 – 18 million international travellers, 110 million domestic ones, and about
840 trillion VND in earnings from tourists. In the most ideal condition, if it
manages to attract 18 million foreign arrivals, the tourism industry could be
said to fully recover to the record level of 2019.

Nguyen Trung Khanh, Director of the
Vietnam National Authority of Tourism, said that after nearly two years of
taking recovery measures, the tourism industry is now on an upward trend. While
many localities have posted strong tourist growth, Vietnam has won many
prestigious international awards, including 19 at the world level and 54 at the
Asian level presented by the World Travel Awards.

With the achievements obtained in
2023, 2024 will be the time for Vietnam’s tourism industry to gain speed to
strengthen competitiveness compared to regional rivals, he opined./.