Travel combo trend

Nowadays, tourists (especially young people) coming to Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa often choose travel combos (basic service packages including: round-trip airfare, hotel rooms...) instead of going on package tours. Affordable prices, free schedules,... are the attractive points of travel combos that tourists cannot ignore.

Last weekend, Ms. Nguyen Quynh Trang's family (Hanoi) had a 3-day, 2-night vacation in Nha Trang. Instead of booking a tour, Ms. Trang researched and chose to book a travel combo including: Airfare and The Empyrean Hotel through a travel agency in Khanh Hoa. After checking in, instead of following a tour, her family comfortably went swimming and enjoyed seafood on the southern bank of Cai River. The next day, she planned to take a mud bath at I-resort Nha Trang, visit attractive relics and destinations such as: Ponagar Tower, Cathedral, Oceanographic Museum... After checking out, her family also received a free ride to the airport.

Tourists stay at Alma Resort (Bai Dai area, Cam Lam district).

The trend of customers booking travel combos began to flourish after the Covid-19 outbreak. At that time, tourists prioritized group tours that were private, safe, and had guaranteed service quality, so they chose travel combos instead of package tours that had many risks of disease due to contact with strangers. And that trend has become increasingly popular with tourists until now, especially the young generation who love to freely explore destinations. Over the past 2 years, many domestic tourists coming to Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa for vacation have chosen to buy travel combos, instead of buying package tours like before the Covid-19 outbreak. Grasping the needs of tourists, travel companies have launched many different combo packages, the most popular of which are 2 product packages: Air tickets and hotels; air tickets, hotels and sightseeing tickets. Besides travel companies, many resorts also cooperate with airlines to launch travel combos including: Air tickets and resort rooms, transportation services.

According to Ms. Nguyen Quynh Mai - Director of Vinh Hai Travel Trading and Service Company Limited (Vinh Hai Travel), nowadays, information technology is developing so that tourists, especially young people, can easily find information about entertainment places without necessarily having a tour guide. Instead, they prefer to explore more freely. However, if they book individual services themselves, it will take time to find out, and the price is also more expensive than booking a combo from a travel company (because the companies buy in bulk so the price is cheaper), so buying a travel combo is the optimal choice. Travel combos also often come with other incentives such as: Free shuttle service, use of some services at the hotel... so they are popular with many people. With travel combos, customers only need to ensure the travel time when arriving and returning, and during the trip, they will actively arrange a schedule to visit and experience services according to their preferences.

Not only domestic tourists, international tourists from Korea, China, Thailand, Kazakhstan... to Khanh Hoa also tend to book travel combos instead of buying full package tours, especially those staying for a long time. Mr. Le Thanh Trung - Director of Good Day Nha Trang Tour Co., Ltd. said that many Korean tourists to Nha Trang have booked travel combos instead of full package tours. To facilitate tourists, currently, travel agencies specializing in serving the Korean market sell both full package tours and combo tours for customers to choose from. On the other hand, Vietnamese tourists going to Korea... also have customers who only buy combos instead of full package tours like before. "I see that tours to Korea spend a lot of time visiting shopping stores. Therefore, I only buy combos instead of booking full package tours. This way, I have more time to explore destinations in the land of kimchi", Ms. Tran Hoai Thuong - a tourist with experience in international travel shared.

Tourists stroll along the beach at Radisson Blu Resort Cam Ranh.

Although there are many benefits, travel combos also have limitations such as: Customers do many procedures at the destination without a tour guide; have to find out more information about other services at the destination; may incur more costs when following the tour... That is not to mention, if not careful, customers can be scammed when booking travel combos through social networks. In reality, to organize a tour, travel agencies must meet many conditions and be strictly controlled by state management agencies in the tourism sector, while the sale of travel combos is less controlled. With the increasing demand, many organizations and individuals have participated in selling travel combos to tourists, including bad guys who have taken advantage of this to scam. “Choosing a combo or booking a package tour depends on the needs of tourists, but remember to carefully research information before buying, choose reputable travel agencies to book. In particular, tourists need to be vigilant and alert to travel combos with ambiguous information and unusually cheap prices sold on social networking sites to avoid being scammed,” Mr. Tran Minh Duc - Deputy Director of Long Phu Tourism Joint Stock Company, Chairman of Khanh Hoa Tourism Association advised.

THANH NGUYEN

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