Open tours and budget travel trends

(Baonghean) - But in recent years, the tourism market has recorded positive changes when it focuses on exploiting individual and budget customers, not just focusing on agencies, groups, and businesses as before.

At the office of Caravan Asia International Travel Company, a group of 2 tourists who just finished a round trip from Vinh to Da Lat excitedly shared that the tour was designed for 3 days with very interesting stops. With a package tour price of 2.5 million VND/person including all services: round trip airfare (cheap), accommodation, 3 meals a day and transportation to tourist attractions..., they can enjoy a trip that was previously difficult for individual tourists to access. Ms. Tran Yen Xuan (Block 8, Cua Nam Ward, Vinh City) said: "At first, we were very worried because it was our first time traveling and we were still confused, and there were only 2 people, so we were afraid that the tour price would be "inflated" very high. However, when the company advised us to join the open tour package in the form of combining individual tourists into a group, we found the cost very reasonable and the basic services still guaranteed quality".

Representatives of travel agencies visited 5 star apple trees, a heritage in Nghi Thinh commune (Nghi Loc).

According to travel agencies in the province, recently, the number of individual customers seeking advice on domestic tours and routes has been increasing. Meanwhile, for a long time, travel agencies in Nghe An have mainly exploited customers such as agencies, businesses, schools, etc. because these groups often have good economic conditions to travel, and when designing tours and routes for groups of over 30 people, it is much easier to balance the package price.

According to Ms. Truong Thi Thanh Hien - Director of Caravan Asia International Travel Company:“Serving individual and budget customers is the spearhead direction of the world tourism industry in general, and our country's tourism in particular. In Nghe An, we must frankly admit that travel agencies have not done this well. With Caravan Asia International Travel Company, we have recently started to implement the "open tour" service. Even if only 1 customer comes to register for a tour, we still try to serve by increasing connections with other travel agencies, grouping individual customers together into groups to conveniently organize tours with full basic services such as transportation, travel insurance, tour guides, food, accommodation...”.

In the last months of 2015, with the domestic route Vinh - Da Lat, Caravan Asia International Travel Company has combined 5 groups of individual tourists; or most recently, with the route Vinh - Nha Trang - Da Lat, the Company has received registrations from a number of individual tourists and is promoting connections and tour departures... With the international tourism sector, in 2014, Caravan Asia Travel Company has combined many groups of individual tourists into groups to go on the Vinh - Vientiane tour... among which, there are many customers who are small traders, students or workers...

Tour guide takes tourists to visit Nghe An sunflower fields

With many quick and creative service methods, along with open tours, travel companies continuously "launch" many promotional tricks, cheap service packages... to "attract" individual and ordinary customers. Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy - Director of the Central Tourism Paradise Company affirmed: "Our approach is to strengthen connections with transportation services such as airlines, trains... to "hunt" for cheap tickets; search and choose places to eat and stay with suitable prices while still maintaining stable quality... to provide customers with the most affordable service packages. Although not as high-end as 5-star resort packages, ordinary customers can still be satisfied with the quality of service."

However, according to Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy, the budget tourism market is expanding, but is still mainly favorable for domestic tourism, while international tourism faces many limitations due to the high cost of organizing international tours and obstacles in entry and exit regulations.

The core of exploiting and serving individual and budget customers is the sustainable connection of travel agencies. According to Mr. Ta Khac Uyen - Director of Nghe An Travel Company, and also the Head of Nghe An Travel Association, when designing "open tours", travel agencies must regularly contact each other to group individual customers into groups, aiming for common services, and profits are divided according to agreement. For Nghe An tourism, this is considered the right direction and is determined to be strategic in the future, in the context of the customer market being agencies, offices, and businesses that are highly competitive and gradually approaching saturation.

Phuoc Anh