Domestic tourism is worried about 'busting out' because services are getting more and more expensive

Canceled all flights because they couldn't afford the plane tickets.

"The plane tickets are so expensive that my family will go to the North to visit my siblings and parents. We won't go anywhere this holiday!", Ms. Thuy An (living in District 4, Ho Chi Minh City) just called to inform her family about the upcoming holiday plan for April 30 - May 1.

Airline tickets are setting a new sky-high price level.

Every year, Ms. An's extended family of nearly 20 people often go out together in the summer, when the children are on school break. This year, seeing the holiday schedule of April 30 - May 1 lasting a whole week, everyone discussed going out. However, all plans had to change when Ms. An checked the airfare and was shocked by the sky-high prices. The cheapest airfare for the Hanoi - Nha Trang route departing on April 28 and returning on May 2 on Vietjet Air is nearly 6 million VND/person/round-trip ticket. This price has increased by more than 1 million VND compared to the time Ms. An surveyed half a month ago. On the same day, if she chose the same flight time as the Hanoi group, her family would have to fly from Ho Chi Minh City to Nha Trang to spend about 4 million VND/person/round-trip ticket. In total, the airfare alone for the whole family to reunite in Nha Trang cost more than 80 million VND.

"Not to mention hotel and food expenses. Previously, this amount of money was enough to buy plane tickets and hotels for the whole group. This year, the economy is difficult, spending more than a hundred million to go out for a few days, thinking about it is a pity so I gave up. The whole family flew to the North for a week, and spent nearly 25 million on plane tickets. And it's not just the holidays that are so expensive, now it's hard to find tickets from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi at around 1.4 - 1.6 million VND/way like before," Ms. Thuy An complained.

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This year, we have a long holiday and plan to take our grandparents on a trip, but tickets to Phu Quoc are too expensive. On average, it costs more than 4 million VND/person, and the whole family spent 50 million VND on tickets alone. If we want to avoid the crowds, we have to stay at high-end resorts. With the same amount of money, going to Thailand or Singapore would be better.

Mr. Tri (residing in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City)

In the same situation, Mr. Tran Tri (living in District 7, Ho Chi Minh City) also just canceled his plan to take his entire family on a trip to Phu Quoc during the holidays because the airfare was too high.

"This year, we have a long holiday and plan to take our grandparents on a trip, but tickets to Phu Quoc are too expensive. On average, it costs more than 4 million VND/person, and the whole family spent 50 million VND on tickets alone. If we want to avoid the crowds, we have to stay at high-end resorts. With the same amount of money, it would be better to go to Thailand or Singapore," Tri shared.

Unlike Mr. Tri or Ms. An, Ms. Quynh Nga (living in District 1, Ho Chi Minh City) did not cancel the trip, but she could not afford the plane ticket so she had to change to taking the train. Promising to take her son to Nha Trang for a few holidays, Ms. Nga was shocked when she thought that the plane ticket would cost at most 2 million VND/person.

When looking for tickets, the lowest price was nearly 4 million VND/person/round trip ticket. The mother and son spent about 7.5 million VND on tickets, twice as much as the train ticket. Therefore, Ms. Quynh Nga decided to buy a round trip sleeper train ticket for more than 3.4 million VND for the two of them. Although the travel time took 9 hours, traveling at night also saved 6 hours of sleep, the remaining 3 hours were also a new experience that Ms. Nga's son wanted to try once.

Worried about overseas tours attracting all customers

Not only airfares have set a new price level, many tourist attractions across the country are simultaneously "convening" to sell entrance tickets. Most recently, Hoi An City has just stipulated that from May 15, when visiting Hoi An ancient town, visitors must buy tickets, instead of only charging separate fees at special relic sites as before. The ticket price is issued at 120,000 VND/ticket for international visitors and 80,000 VND/ticket for domestic visitors. Hoi An's charging entrance tickets has surprised many people because up to now, many visitors from other localities coming to Da Nang only want to go to Hoi An because they like the atmosphere of the ancient town, not to visit like first-time visitors.

"Sometimes I come to Hoi An just to eat a bowl of cao lau or walk around. If I have to pay an entrance fee now, I definitely won't spend money to come back here many times," a travel enthusiast in Ho Chi Minh City said frankly.

In the current context, tourism businesses across the country are facing difficulties, not only travel agencies but also the system of destinations, restaurants and hotels that have almost been exhausted. When the international market has not been able to flourish as expected, the domestic market is expected to be the savior of the tourism industry, the peak seasons of holidays and Tet are considered as "showers", an opportunity to stimulate demand in all trade and service sectors. From there, creating a spillover effect for the entire economy that has just experienced low growth results in the first quarter.

Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh, former Vice President of Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa Tourism Association

Previously, Duong Lam ancient village (Hanoi) also surprised everyone when it organized a ticket collection of 20,000 VND/ticket, starting from mid-2022. Because the village is still inhabited by normal people, and is a road connecting many communes, ticket sellers have to do the extra work of "filtering" tourists or locals, while many vehicles passing through the village also feel annoyed because they have to stop to "declare" and confirm that they are not tourists to avoid paying the ticket fee.

It is worth mentioning that while domestic airfares and tourism services are increasing, after the pandemic, many countries are implementing many cooperation and stimulus programs to attract international visitors. According to a survey at a number of travel companies on the occasion of April 30 and May 1, the cheapest tour to Thailand is being sold at 8 - 10 million VND/person; the tour to explore Singapore is from 13 - 15 million VND/person; the tour to Korea is 18 - 20 million VND/person; the tour to Japan before the pandemic was not less than 40 million VND/person, now it is only from 28 - 35 million VND/person...

Tourism expert Nguyen Van Thanh (former Vice President of Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa Tourism Association) is concerned that if this situation continues, Vietnam's tourism industry will face the risk of having to watch tourists go to other countries to stimulate demand.

According to Mr. Thanh, transportation is the most important and decisive factor of the tourism industry in particular and the economy in general. For travel companies, increasing airfares can push up tour prices by 30-40%. The current trend is that domestic tourists often go on tours less often but travel independently in small groups of friends and family. Airfares are too high, if they "cancel the trip" as in some of the cases mentioned above, tourism will lose revenue; and if they switch to traveling by train or using a family car, driving themselves, the journey will take 1-2 more days of travel, which means less time for fun and less spending.

"This is not just about holiday prices, but it is a long-term story of the tourism industry. Once a new, higher price level is established, it is very difficult to reduce it. For airline tickets, the Government should have a stabilization plan such as reducing taxes, fees, and slowing down the price increase. As for other services, the tourism industry needs to seriously address the issue of linkage to form product packages with good services and reasonable prices, both to serve domestic tourists and as a competitive weapon to attract international visitors," Mr. Nguyen Van Thanh proposed.

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