The high inbound tourism season in winter lasts from October to March. While some travel firms put high hopes o­n the new season, many others o­nly wish they will have the same number of clients as the same period of the last year. Especially, some have reported sharp falls in the number of travelers who have booked tours so far.

According to Lac Hong Voyages, travelers from Asian markets may decrease by 20-30 percent in comparison with the last year’s winter. Vietravel has reported little increases from South East Asian and Japanese markets, but sharp falls have been anticipated for other markets, including Europe and theUS.

The same situation is occurring with many other travel firms. Especially, some of them have predicted the sharp decrease of 30 percent of the European market.

“We feel worried now and we have been trying to attract more travelers. It is very difficult to find the partners who can provide travelers,” said Nguyen Quoc Ky, General Director of Vietravel.

The gloomy picture of Vietnam’s tourism proves to be not a surprise at all. The bad global economic performance has forced consumers to cut down their expenses. Meanwhile, Vietnam’s key markets are facing some serious problems. Europe, which includes the US, Germany, France, Spain and Italia, is in big economic difficulties. TheUS, Australia and North East Asian countries, including Japan, are also facing the same challenges.

The best solution to lure more tourists to Vietnam, according to travel firms, is lowering tour fees. However, the firms believe that this is “an impossible mission” for now, when everything is getting more and more expensive, which has made the input costs higher.

Regarding the tour fees, most of international travel firms have affirmed that the fees would increase at least by 15-25 percent this season in comparison with the same period of the last year, even though travel firms have to accept lower profits.

In the global economic downturn, foreign partners have continuously asked Vietnamese travel firms to reduce fees. Meanwhile, service providers (road transport, restaurant, hotel, meals) in Vietnam all are attempting to raise fees, which make it impossible to design competitive products to lure more travelers.

According to Ky of Vietravel, the fees of the tours to Vietnam are always higher than the tours to other neighboring destinations. However, the tour fees keep increasing year after year.

“In other countries, the petrol price increase has also badly affected the tourism industry. However, the involved parties can sit together and cooperate to lower tour fees to attract more travelers. But in Vietnam, no cooperation agreement can be reached,” Ky said.

Meanwhile, Tran Vinh Loc, Director of Lac Hong Voyages, believes that the biggest weakness of Vietnam’s tourism is the lack of attractive products. Foreign travelers come to Vietnam mostly to enjoy natural beautiful landscapes and go shopping, while they have nowhere to go if they want to enjoy entertainment services at night.

This proves to be quite different from South Korea, where travelers have 12 choices every night. Meanwhile, Thailandand Singapore also have diversified art performance shows.

In fact, the travelers to HCM City do not have many places to go, except some familiar places. They go to Cu Chi tunnel, a historical site, in the morning, then to the Binh Tay Market in the afternoon and then to Ben Thanh Market in the evening to enjoy special food and buy some souvenirs.

Vietnamese travel firms also feel worried because of the competition of other regional destinations such asSingapore, Malaysia and Thailand which have launched continued noisy marketing strategies.

Vietnam has witnessed considerable decreases in the number of foreign travelers to Vietnam recently, after it saw sharp increases in many months. The number of foreign travelers to Vietnam in September 2011, dropped by 25.3 percent from the same period of the last year. Especially, China and Cambodia, two of the five markets with the highest growth rates of 35.9 percent and 68percent in August, also saw decreases.

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