Tet holiday tourism: Provincial tours are quiet

(Baonghean) - In recent years, during the Lunar New Year, many families organize long-term trips domestically and internationally... This year, through research, tours and routes to Nghe An are quite sparse.

Exciting international tours

According to statistics of Anh Em International Travel Company, by January 10, 2017, the company has received bookings until the end of the 15th day of the first lunar month, with about 200 customers mainly on the routes Vientiane - Luang Prabang - Xieng Khouang; Da Nang - Nha Trang - Da Lat. Customers also mainly travel after the 4th day of Tet until the 15th day of the first lunar month.

This is the year that, according to Mr. Nguyen Tat Hau - representative of the tourism company: "It seems much more bustling, because people no longer have the mindset of Tet being about hanging around with friends, neighbors and drinking from morning to night, but people choose to enjoy vacations to restore productivity after a year of hard work".

According to Mr. Hau, the Laos - Thailand tour within 6 days 5 nights and only 7 million VND/person is quite an interesting choice for people with average income. In addition, tours such as Indonesia - Malaysia - Singapore or cheap tours to Korea and Japan, newly exploited by the unit, are also chosen by many customers for this year's Tet holiday season.

Thanh An Tea Island (Thanh Chuong) is an attractive destination for tourists during Tet. Photo: Huy Thu

According to Mr. Ta Khac Uyen - Nghe An Tourism Joint Stock Company, with 15 tour groups, each attracting an average of 200 visitors, this Tet, travel agencies have attracted 3,000 tourists to tourist destinations, mainly foreign tourist destinations. In addition, tours such as Ha Long - Sa Pa; Da Nang - Nha Trang - Da Lat have also been built by agencies and attracted thousands of visitors.

As Chairman of Nghe An Tourism Association, Mr. Uyen also said that in 2016, tourism businesses in the province proactively built intra-provincial tourism programs to sell to domestic and foreign tourists. In addition, the work of promoting the expansion of the tourist market and marketing and promoting products was more focused. Thanks to that, the number of international and domestic tourists traveling on tours tended to increase.

Besides the old markets such as Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Korean and Japanese markets are two new markets that are being exploited quite effectively by travel agencies. The number of visitors, including those from Thailand, coming to Nghe An for sightseeing and spiritual tourism by road and air from Vinh to Bangkok has increased significantly.

Desolate provincial tours

On the other hand, intra-provincial tours are not exploited by travel agencies because the built-in destinations are not attractive to tourists. Mr. Cao Duc Cuong - Director of ABC Travel International Tourism Company Limited said: "We plan to welcome 100 Thai tourists to stay in Vietnam, but the destinations in Nghe An are not exploited and included in the program by the company. Because apart from some familiar destinations such as President Ho Chi Minh's hometown, the Square, and 2 years ago, the sunflower field, there are no other destinations that tourists like."

Since mid-2016, cultural-historical and eco-tourism destinations in the West such as Truong Bon Historical Site, Pu Mat National Park, Muong Thanh Safari Dien Lam Eco-tourism Area, etc. have experienced a sudden growth of 50-100%. Especially during the holidays, many destinations have been overloaded. However, during the Tet holiday season, destinations in the eco-tourism segment are not chosen by many tourists.

Understanding the psychology of customers, many travel agencies proactively build their own tours on spiritual tourism and only deploy them after the 8th day of Tet. Mr. Cao Duc Cuong - Director of ABC Travel International Company Limited added: "Since the beginning of December 2016, we have received many pilgrimage orders, so we have proactively built spiritual tours such as Bai Dinh Pagoda, Yen Tu Pagoda, Huong Tich Pagoda and in Nghe An, we also connect more places such as King Quang Trung Temple, Ong Hoang Muoi Temple, Truong Bon Historical Relic Site... but there are very few because most of the customers travel alone from the first days of the year".

Mr. Nguyen Manh Cuong - Director of the Department of Tourism said: 2016 is marked as a year in which investment in developing new tourism products has had a strong change, including the Muong Thanh Safari Dien Lam Eco-tourism Area.

Some projects for planning eco-tourism areas in the West have been implemented, including Cau Cau Dam Eco-tourism Area (Thanh Chuong) with a very attractive tea hill landscape. In addition, models of staying at local houses and selling brocade weaving products, visiting and experiencing orange farms and producing orange products in Pha village, Con Cuong district, connecting villages with Khe Kem waterfall tourist destination, Giang river tourist route... have been initially formed and attracted the attention of travel agencies as well as tourists.

However, Tet season is still a difficult season to exploit these destinations that are expected to attract tourists because, in Nghe An, there is still a heavy mindset that during Tet, services double or triple, and there are even many places that do not have accompanying services, simply because people... are on Tet holiday.

In addition, tourism activities are still fragmented, lacking connectivity and more importantly, the content and form of promotional activities have not been strongly innovated. State management of tourism has not covered the entire area, and the coordination of management agencies from the province to districts, cities and towns is still not tight. Therefore, the construction of domestic tours and routes to serve tourists during Tet still faces many obstacles.

Thanh Nga