Kinhtedothi - The 2025 Lunar New Year holiday lasts 9 days, so the demand for travel is high. However, due to sky-high airfares, the domestic market is in a state of "waiting for customers" to book tours. Meanwhile, international tours attract customers because of reasonable prices and many attractive destinations.
Popular foreign tours
Taking advantage of the long Tet holiday, Mr. Tran Viet Hoang (Cau Giay District, Hanoi ) and a group of friends decided to travel together. Initially, Mr. Hoang planned a trip to Da Nang - Hoi An - Hue, but after researching the prices, he booked a tour to Kunming - Dali (China) because the price was less than 8 million VND for a 4-day, 4-night tour.
Referring to the travel trends during the upcoming Lunar New Year, a representative of Dat Viet Tour said that the foreign tours that people are most interested in during the upcoming Lunar New Year holiday are tours to China, Korea, and Japan, of which Chinese tours account for up to 75%.
Similarly, information from BenThanh Tourist Company shows that currently, tours to Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and tours to China have an 80% occupancy rate. "In particular, tourists are tending to spend a lot of money on high-value tours, thereby ensuring a complete vacation, new experiences and high-quality service" - Director of Marketing and Information Technology of BenThanh Tourist Company Tran Phuong Linh said.
Explaining the reason why overseas tours are in high demand during the upcoming Tet holiday, Communications Director of Viet Travel Company Bui Anh Vu said that Vietnamese tourists choose to travel abroad at a higher rate than domestic tours because the prices are cheaper but customers enjoy higher quality of service.
Information from tourism businesses shows that Vietnamese tourists prefer to travel abroad because the host country has preferential policies for Vietnamese tourists. Some cheap Chinese tours that attract tourists include the Jiuzhaigou - Jiaguoshan tour; the Guizhou tour for 4 days and 3 nights priced at only 6.9 million VND/person; the Beijing - Shanghai tour for 6 days and 5 nights priced at 17.4 million VND/person; the Kunming - Dali tour for 4 days and 4 nights by road priced at 7.6 million VND/person; the Phoenix Ancient Town tour for 6 days and 5 nights priced at 10.9 million VND/person... In addition, some Korean tours for 5 days and 4 nights priced at 19.9 million VND/person...
Domestic tour waiting for guests
While international tours attract tourists, domestic tours are in a slump. Data from online travel platform Mustgo shows that except for Phu Quoc, which has a high occupancy rate, the current occupancy rate for the Lunar New Year 2025 at many hotels in Lao Cai, Quang Ninh, Da Nang, Quang Nam , Khanh Hoa, Binh Dinh, etc. is only at an average level, with some places reaching less than 40%.
Explaining the reason why tourists do not favor domestic tours, Marketing Director of BestPrice Travel Company Bui Thanh Tu analyzed that airfares for the Lunar New Year 2025 will remain high and increase by 10-15% compared to Tet 2024.
According to Vice President of the Vietnam Tourism Association Phung Quang Thang, almost every year, when the New Year and Lunar New Year holidays come around, airfares also increase quite high, while airfares usually account for about 30-40% of the tour price. This forces travel companies to adjust domestic tour prices up by 10-20%, causing many travel companies to not be interested in selling domestic products traveling by air. Meanwhile, with international tours, the package prices are quite reasonable, and at the same time, tourism products are very diverse and rich from departure date, tour time, ticket price, location... giving domestic tourists many choices.
Similarly, Pham Van Bay, Deputy Director of Vietravel Hanoi Branch, said that the international tourism market during Tet holiday attracted more tourists than the same period last year. "High airfare is one of the reasons why tourists switch to international tourism during Tet holiday instead of domestic tourism. This has a negative impact on domestic tourism," said Mr. Bay.
General Director of Trang An Travel Nguyen Huu Cuong informed that the round-trip domestic airfares of airlines on some routes during Tet are equal to or even higher than the price of package tours to Thailand and Cambodia at the same time, causing tourists to choose to travel abroad. "Currently, a 5-day, 4-night tour departing from Ho Chi Minh City to Taiwan on the 1st, 2nd and 8th of Tet is being sold for 12.9 million VND per person. Meanwhile, a tour from Ho Chi Minh City to Quy Nhon and Phu Yen at the same time costs about 9.5 million VND, so many tourists have chosen to travel abroad," Mr. Cuong cited.
A survey on travel websites of travel agencies offering domestic tours for the Lunar New Year 2025 shows that a 5-day, 4-night Da Nang tour departing from Hanoi costs VND8.5 million/person; a 4-day, 3-night Hanoi - Buon Me Thuot tour costs VND5.4 million/person... Meanwhile, the price of an international tour with a tour departing from Hanoi - Bangkok - Pattaya for 5 days and 4 nights costs only VND7 million/person; a 5-day, 4-night Ho Chi Minh City - Bangkok - Pattaya - NongNooch Dinosaur Park tour costs VND7.99 million/person.
From an expert perspective, Director of the Institute for Tourism Development Research (Vietnam National Administration of Tourism) Nguyen Anh Tuan said that the aviation and tourism industries should consider long-term cooperation to avoid the situation of increasing transportation prices during peak seasons. To do this, the Government needs to participate in coordinating ticket prices so that they are not too low compared to the floor price or can compensate for losses.
Source: https://kinhtedothi.vn/du-lich-tet-at-ty-tour-ngoai-hut-khach-tour-noi-cho-dat-mua.html
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