Take advantage of the opportunity to accelerate the influx of tourists during the Lunar New Year holiday season.

Positive signals from the hotel.

According to statistics from the Mustgo travel platform, several popular tourist destinations such as Sa Pa, Quang Ninh, Hoi An, and Phu Quoc recorded good occupancy rates. In particular, many hotels and resorts in Hoi An and Phu Quoc are fully booked, largely thanks to international tourists.

During the Lunar New Year holiday, tourists tend to travel north, to destinations in the high mountains.

In Sa Pa – one of the localities with promising forecasts for the Lunar New Year tourist season – hotel occupancy rates may fluctuate significantly in the days leading up to the holiday, as Vietnamese tourists tend to book rooms at the last minute.

In Quang Ninh province alone, while hotel occupancy rates are around 20-30% depending on the segment, cruise ship occupancy is approximately 80%, indicating that the demand for beach holidays during the Lunar New Year remains high.

Meanwhile, hotels in central and southern regions such as Da Nang, Quy Nhon, Nha Trang, Phan Thiet, etc., still have many vacant rooms. Many establishments in Da Nang, Quy Nhon, and other areas have had to run major promotions for early bookings, waiving surcharges, etc., to stimulate demand, but the number of room requests remains low.

According to a representative from Mustgo, hotel occupancy rates in Phu Quoc average 80% for 3- and 4-star hotels. Similar to the New Year holiday, in the first quarter of 2024, the island continuously welcomed international charter flights, resulting in a high occupancy rate.

Attract customers with your products.

Speaking to Lao Dong newspaper, Mr. Nguyen Cong Hoan, General Director of Flamingo Redtours, said that international tourists visiting Vietnam have shorter stays and lower spending compared to before the pandemic, and the trend of choosing independent travel is increasing. While service providers are still facing many difficulties, the recovery rate is good but the quality is not yet stable.

Therefore, businesses must prepare new, flexible products, continuously introducing novel, distinctive, and attractive elements for each customer journey. In addition, they must explore diverse markets, expand their market reach, and identify niche markets.

Not only the inbound market, but also the domestic and outbound tourism markets will face certain difficulties in the context of a sluggish economy, according to Mr. Nguyen Van Hieu - General Director of Vitamin Tours - who assessed that spending on tourism will certainly be tightened in 2024.

Responding flexibly to market fluctuations and trends, this company offers affordable packages priced under 5 million or 10 million VND to stimulate tourism demand. A prominent destination attracting Vietnamese tourists during the Lunar New Year holiday season is China, with tours almost fully booked.

"This shows that the demand for tourism from Northerners remains very high. During the festival season, we are not focusing heavily on day tours but rather on 2-day, 1-night tours, so we will create 2-day, 1-night packages that are affordable yet high-quality, still using 4- and 5-star services," Mr. Hieu said.

With a longer-term strategy for the summer and the entire year of 2024, the company has booked numerous international flights to destinations in China such as Jiuzhaigou, Beijing, Shanghai, Suzhou, etc., as well as South Korea, Japan, Dubai, Singapore, and Malaysia. These are predicted to be markets that will continue to attract the attention of Vietnamese travelers.

"Especially given the difficult economic situation, the service value of domestic tours is very high, so we predict that 2024 will still be a boom year for international tourism," said a representative of this company.

According to the General Statistics Office, Vietnam's international visitor numbers in January 2024 exceeded 1.5 million. This represents a 10.3% increase compared to the previous month and a 73.6% increase compared to the same period in 2023. This growth rate is the highest since Vietnam reopened for tourism in March 2022, equivalent to the number of international visitors to Vietnam in January 2019 before the pandemic. Air arrivals reached 1.29 million, a 10.2% increase compared to the same period in 2019; sea arrivals reached 48,300, double the number from the same period in 2019. Meanwhile, land arrivals only reached 60% of the 2019 figures. This indicates a strong recovery in air and sea travel connections.

In terms of market size, South Korea continued to be the largest source market in January with 418,000 arrivals – accounting for 27.6%. China ranked second with 242,000 arrivals, Taiwan (China) ranked third with 84,000 arrivals, and the US fourth with 76,000 arrivals.

Source