Vietnamese people are increasingly 'spending lavishly' on tourism.

Tourism services are the 4th product in the top product groups that Vietnamese people spend the most on e-commerce.

Traveling to Southeast Asia is now quite popular among Vietnamese people, not only among residents of Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi. A few days ago, AirAsia suddenly announced that it would open a flight route connecting Nha Trang with Kuala Lumpur with daily frequency from mid-September. The airline's leaders are optimistic that the people of Kha Hoa will also be excited about Malaysian destinations.

According to incomplete statistics compiled by the Vietnam Tourism Association, there were about 6.5 million Vietnamese people traveling abroad last year, an increase of about 15% compared to 2015. And this number spent up to 7-8 billion USD. Domestic tourism growth is not less. In the first six months of the year, domestic tourists nationwide reached 40.7 million, an increase of 25% compared to the same period in 2016 with 32.4 million.

Rising incomes are the main reason. But according to experts, the second reason why Vietnamese people are increasingly willing to spend more on travel is the internet. From marketing to business, businesses involved in the tourism industry are taking full advantage of Vietnamese people's "addiction" to the internet and smartphones to stimulate the need for travel.

The Internet and smartphones are contributing to stimulating Vietnamese people's demand for spending on tourism. Photo: VNE

Ms. Le Tu, representative of Google Asia Pacific, cited Google data saying that 90% of smartphone users in Vietnam are 30 years old or younger, and up to 40% of users have up to 2 mobile phones. On average, Vietnamese people check their phones 150 times a day.

The level of Vietnamese people searching for travel information is even more surprising. 48% of smartphone users search for hotel information, 42% search for flight information. In the US, this rate is only 18% for both.

Not only searching, Vietnamese people also spend real money on travel on the internet. According to Nielsen survey, travel services are the 4th product in the top product groups that Vietnamese people spend the most on e-commerce, after fashion, entertainment products and cosmetics.

Increasing the exploitation of social networks, increasing spending on online advertising and creating new tourism models... are the methods that a series of domestic and foreign businesses are applying to create and exploit the "craving" for travel of Vietnamese people via the internet.

Specifically, in the first 5 months of 2017, the phrase “experiential tourism” appeared more than 670,000 times on forums and social networking sites. This effect was created by previous movies such as “I see yellow flowers on green grass” or “Kong: Skull Island”.

Promotional campaigns for homestays by small-scale accommodation establishments and the strong activities of tourism KOLs (people with influence on the online community) with the support of airlines, resorts or travel companies... also contribute significantly to this effect.

The market is vibrant, lucrative but also very competitive. With the convenience of e-commerce, domestic tourism units are now under great pressure from foreign units.

“For tourism, we have a great opportunity to access foreign markets, but conversely, Vietnamese consumers will also spend their money on services abroad.

In Nielsen’s survey, nearly half of those who shopped online chose foreign services. Among them, the tourism service industry also ranked very high, ranking 4th among the industries they searched from abroad. We see that Vietnamese people’s wallets are being shared by foreign competitors,” said Mr. Pham Thanh Cong, an expert from Nielsen Vietnam.

According to VNE

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