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Malaysia News : Malaysia Explorer

 Tourists brave inflation to see the world

 Date: 16 July, 2008

Nguyen Kim Trung, a Hanoian high school teacher, decided to sign up for a tour through Malaysia for her family this summer vacation.

"Though my family is not very rich, my husband and I decided to go on this trip to reward our two children after one hard academic year. Moreover, summertime is also a free time for teachers like me," she says.

Viet Nam is now coping with inflation, and as society faces the so-called "storm of increasing consumer prices," many people are trying to live economically and cut down on unnessary spending.

But the travel companies are still crowded with the number of people registering for summer tours.

"Most people registering for summer tours are families. Teachers take advantage of the summertime for going on holidays. Offices and companies also organise vacations for their staff. Therefore, travel companies must continually increase their number of tours," says Nguyen Chi Thanh, deputy director of Hapro Travel Company...

Thanh says although tour prices are increasing, the tourism market remains very active, as tourism has become a regular expectation of many families.

"So far this year, the number of visitors registered with our company has increased by 12 per cent against the same period last year. If the country were not facing inflation our tourism development would be even stronger, and this figure could have reached up to 30 per cent," says Thanh.

Travel companies offer many sales promotions, such as lucky draws for clients who may win TVs, mobile phones and refrigerators.

Previously, expensive vacations were only for a small number of people. But nowadays, expensive tours have become popular for many people. Staying in luxury resorts or foreign-owned hotels now have a special attraction for some Vietnamese.

According to Ha Noi Tourism Company, in the first six months this year, about 1,500 Vietnamese registered to stay at domestic resorts and four-star hotels, an increase of 35 per cent over the same period last year.

Vietnamese people’s tendency to go on high-ranking tours is a good signal for domestic tourism companies, because a client often spends on vacation, about VND500,000 (US$30) daily on average, and they often stay between four and five days in resorts and hotels.

According to HCM City’s Tourism Department, in the first five months this year, more than 300,000 Vietnamese regisrered to visit foreign countries, an increase of 30 per cent over the same period last year. Most of them visited China, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia. Tours to Europe, the US, South Korea, Japan and Egypt have been increasingly popular.

Doan Thanh Tra, head of Saigontourist’s marketing division, says earlier this year company leaders worried that they would hardly attract any tourists, both because they needed to raise prices to cover costs, but also because the rising cost of living would cut into the disposable income families used to pay for travel.

"But by mid-May, all of our tours for June were completely booked. Even though tour prices increased by more than 10 per cent, the number of tourists this summer grew by 15 per cent," says Tra.

"Even the expensive tours attracted a lot of clients. For example, we used to organised monthly tours to the US, but this summer we have them once a week. Tours to countries that don’t require visas, like Thailand, Manlaysia and Singapore, are available almost every day," she says.

Nguyen Tuyet Mai, an official of the Fiditourist company, says her company expected to handle 23,000 tourists this summer, an increase of 15 – 20 per cent over last summer.

According to most travel companies, travellers this summer are tending to choose shorter-distance tours, either to neighbouring countries or domestic locations. They said the number of people who registered for domestic tours increased by 20 per cent compared with last summer, mostly to beaches like Cua Lo, Sam Son, Thien Cam, Phan Thiet, Nha Trang and Phu Quoc.

Many tour guides say that although people are ready to pay for their families to have a happy and comfortable vacation, many tourists tend to strictly control their spending, in keeping with the widespread tightening of family budgets.

 Source: http://vietnamnews.vnagency.com.vn