This year’s nine-day Lunar New
Year holiday has helped drive large numbers of local and foreign visitors to
tourist destinations across the country, raising hopes of a successful year for
the tourism industry.
Foreigners
learn how to make Banh Chung - a typical type of Vietnamese cakes during the Tet
holiday (Photo:VNE)
Big
profits
Vietravel tourism company
has served nearly 35,000 visitors, rising 25 percent from last year’s Tet
holiday figure. The first two days of the Lunar New Year (February 10-11)
saw a record high of more than 7,000 arrivals.
Ta Thi Tu Uyen, a Vietravel
official, said the company had organised more than 300 inbound and outbound
tours before the Tet holiday, catering to various tastes.
Tours of the northern, central
and southern regions were very popular, especially those of cultural and
historical relic sites in Hanoi, North-western provinces, Danang, Nha Trang, Hoi
An, Hue, Da Lat, Ho Chi Minh City, and South-western provinces, said Uyen.
Saigontourist, the country’s
leading tour operator, kick-started the long holiday with a swathe of impressive
tours, attracting over 68,000 local and foreign visitors.
It served more than 46,000
foreign holiday-makers, up 43 percent from a year ago, ran 255 inbound tours, up
30 percent, and held 196 outbound tours, up 50 percent.
The company deployed all its
available buses on route shuttling between hundreds of scheduled local and
overseas destinations.
Major tourist destinations
have attracted a high influx of visitors these days. The Quang Ninh provincial
Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism reported that as many as 350,000
people have visited the World Heritage Site of Ha Long Bay over the past nine
days, a year-on-year increase of 17 percent.
The former imperial city of
Hue attracted nearly 32,000 visitors during the first three days of the Lunar
New Year, 8,000 of whom were foreigners from France, the US and Australia.
The central city of Danang’s
promotional successes have created expectations of welcoming more than 143,000
local and foreign visitors, up 10.4 percent.
Tet for
foreigners
The traditional Tet holiday’s
culture and customs are becoming intangible assets for the tourism industry.
Increasing numbers of foreigners are choosing Vietnam as their long-term holiday
destination. Tourist resorts, trading centres and tour operations are
capitalising the golden opportunity by providing traditional Tet welcoming
ceremonies to attract visitors.
Vietravel representative
Nguyen Minh Man said the Tet tours offer foreign visitors the chance to shop,
visit and share traditional Tet dishes with Vietnamese families, assemble Banh
Chung (square cake made from sticky rice, green beans and pork) and observe
ancestor worship.
Saigontourist’s Foreigners
Enjoy Vietnamese Tet programme, started since 2003, has helped promote Vietnam’s
traditional cultural values during the Tet holiday. Its two varieties of 2013
Tet tours Tet in the Mekong Delta and Tet with Saigonese, saw a 40-percent rise
in the number of foreign tourists participating in.
The Ho Chi Minh City
Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism expects that international arrivals in
the city are likely to increase 8 percent during this year’s Tet holiday.
Major tour operators enjoying
the boon in potential customer numbers include JTB (up 30 percent, most from
Japan), and Saigontourist (up 14 percent from France and Germany).
Other operators include
Vietravel, Ben Thanh, Fiditour, Hoa Binh, Vietnam, and Apex, have seen average
increases of between 5 and 10 percent. Revenue is predicted to rise by 7
percent.
Quality
services
Tour operators make the most
of the long Tet holiday to bolster profits and promote the country’s
international profile. Providing the best possible services is essential to
attracting more holiday-makers.
This year’s Vietravel guides
have been sent to tourist hotspots in northern and central regions, and overseas
destinations in Thailand Cambodia, Singapore and Malaysia. The guides have
completed training courses to ensure safety and maximise visitor convenience.
Under the Vietravel programme
For a Clean Tourism Environment, all customers on its inbound and outbound tours
are provided with biodegradable nylon bags to encourage maintaining a clean and
green environment.
The large numbers of Tet
holiday-makers have laid the foundations for the tourism industry’s lucrative
2013.
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