Undecided about choosing a tour?
For many years, Ms. D.D., the principal of a kindergarten in Kinh Mon town, has organized domestic trips for the school's staff and teachers during the summer. However, this year, she is still hesitant about where to go. “This year, the school's staff and teachers want to travel to Quy Nhon. However, after researching, I found that the round-trip airfare from Hanoi to Quy Nhon is over 4.2 million VND per person. Then there are the costs of food, accommodation, entertainment… Adding it all up, it's about ten million VND per person. When we heard this price, everyone was hesitant because it was too high,” Ms. D. said.
Mr. Tran Van Huy (from Hai Duong City) had planned a family trip to Phu Quoc this summer, but his family's plan seems unlikely to materialize. "Since last month, I've occasionally checked several websites for airline tickets, but the cheapest round-trip economy class tickets are still over 3 million VND per person, so I haven't been able to buy any yet," Mr. Huy shared.
Despite having worked as a travel agent for over 5 years, Ms. Vu Ngoc Van Anh (from Hai Duong City) admits that she has never faced such difficulties in securing tour bookings as this year. “In previous years, by this time, my schedule for the summer was already fully booked, including individual travelers and groups from agencies and businesses. This year, the number of domestic summer tour bookings is less than one-third of what it was in previous years. The main reason is the high increase in airfare, which has significantly driven up tour costs,” Ms. Van Anh stated.
According to Ms. Hoang Thi Thuy, Director of Dong Chay Viet International Travel Co., Ltd., air travel tours are usually associated with long-distance tours, covering distances of 500 km or more. In recent years, this type of tour has accounted for the majority of the company's tourism products. This year, although the number of customers inquiring about tours and services is similar to last year, the percentage of customers who "confirmed" their bookings is only about 50% compared to previous years because they are still balancing costs after the increase in airfare prices.
Some travel agencies and companies say that if they "stock up" on a large number of airline tickets, they will get good discounts from airlines, which will lower tour prices. However, because airfares are high this year, customers are not aggressively booking tours, so they don't dare to "stock up" on tickets. Because if they buy them and there are no customers, they will lose all the money spent on the tickets.
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Faced with rising airfares and their impact on travel costs, travel companies have made appropriate adjustments to ensure business operations and meet the demand for leisure and tourism. Many people have also taken measures to cope with the increase in airfares.
While waiting to see if he could "hunt" for cheap plane tickets, Mr. Tran Van Huy proactively researched several tourist destinations in the northern mountainous provinces to consider those places as potential destinations. "I think Son La or Hoa Binh are both quite good, with many beautiful scenic spots and easy transportation. Children can also explore and immerse themselves in nature. Importantly, they are also inexpensive. Sometimes, spending a few days there would only cost as much as buying a plane ticket to Quy Nhon," Mr. Huy said.
Ms. D.TD said that she might organize a trip abroad for teachers because some tours are even cheaper than domestic tours. "I've looked into it and found a 5-day, 4-night tour to Thailand for just over 8 million VND, the same price as a trip to Quy Nhon, so I'm gathering opinions from the staff and teachers. If most of them agree, we will choose this tour," Ms. D. said.
Instead of advising customers to take domestic tours by plane, Ms. Vu Ngoc Van Anh recommends overseas tours to countries like Thailand, South Korea, or China at comparable prices. Some tours to China, located near Vietnam, lasting 3 days and 2 nights, even cost over 2 million VND.
According to Ms. Hoang Thi Thuy, to meet customer needs and create suitable tour costs, Viet Flow International Travel Co., Ltd. has developed several tours by road, train, and air during off-peak hours, such as to Da Nang, Hue, Saigon - Mui Ne, etc.
On March 1st, Circular No. 34/2023 of the Ministry of Transport, supplementing several provisions of Circular No. 17/2019 adjusting the ceiling price of air tickets, came into effect.
According to the new circular, the price ceiling on domestic flights has been adjusted upwards by 5% compared to the previous level. Specifically, for routes with a distance of less than 500 km, the price ceiling is 1.6 million VND/ticket/one-way for routes contributing to socio-economic development and 1.7 million VND/ticket/one-way for other routes. For other routes, the price increase ranges from 50,000 to 250,000 VND/ticket/one-way compared to the old regulations, depending on the length of each route.
For routes from 500 km to under 850 km, the maximum price is 2,250,000 VND/ticket/one-way; for routes from 850 km to under 1,000 km, the maximum price is 2,890,000 VND/ticket/one-way; for routes from 1,000 km to under 1,280 km, the maximum price is 3,400,000 VND/ticket/one-way; and for routes of 1,280 km or more, the maximum price is 4,000,000 VND/ticket/one-way.
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