Especially, if travelers want to visit some points of the fixed itineraries, they will have to buy tickets for the whole itinerary; while previously, they only had to pay tickets for the excursion to some certain points.

“The sudden increases in excursion fees have made us dumstruck,” said Nguyen Quoc Anh, Director of Bien Ngoc Travel Firm.

According to Anh, 50 percent of Bien Ngoc’s clients are foreign tourists, who booked tours six months, or one year in advance. Meanwhile, just within one week, Anh herd the news about the excursion fee increase of 100 percent at Ha Long Bay, and then about the fee increase of 15 percent in Sa Pa.

“The higher excursion fee should be applied only to irregular travelers who do not book tours in advanced,” Anh said. The problem is that travel firms cannot raise the tour fees applied to the clients who book tours in advance. As a result, they have to pay their own money to offset the excursion fee increases.

Asiana Travel Mate has also said that it will incur losses due to the unexpected excursion fee increases. Nguyen Viet Linh, a tour operator of the firm, said that the price list has been sent to clients both in Vietnam and foreign countries already. Therefore, the firm cannot adjust the tour fees at this moment - the high tour season.



“Domestic travelers tend not to choose the tours which have excursion fee increasing. Meanwhile, travel firms cannot demand higher excursion fees from foreign travelers, who have booked tours many months before. Therefore, it is the travel firms, who will suffer,” he said.

Huong Giang from Van Hoa travel firm has pointed out that while the excursion fees increase, the service quality does not increase accordingly. A lot of travelers, who are planning to book tours for Christmas and New Year holiday, still keep hesitant, saying that they need to reconsider the itineraries and tour fees.

How heavy of a loss will travel firms incur?

According to Anh, the service quality in Vietnam is not better than that of other regional countries, but the tour fees are more expensive.

A five day and four night tour to Thailand costs 265 dollars, while the fee to Vietnam is 300 dollars. If not counting on air tickets, travelers would have to pay less than 100 dollars for the tour to Thailand and stay at 3-4 star hotels, the thing that cannot be seen in Vietnam.

Anh said that most of his clients are foreign travelers, therefore, he well understands what will happen if the service fee increases are not associated with the better service quality.

“It is necessary to follow a roadmap when raising fees. Our partners always inform us about any changes 2-4 months in advance,” Linh said

Giang also said that she can see clearly how the tour fee increases influence clients’ decision. “Domestic travelers would cancel tours or choose other trips, while foreign travelers would consider choosing another destination,” Giang said.

Travel firms restarting tours to Thailand

Nearly one month after the interruption due to the historical floods, Vietnamese travel firms have restarted the outbound tours to Thailand, because these are considered the most attractive tours in South East Asia.

Bangkok has escaped from the floods

Head of the PR Division of Vietravel Nguyen Minh Man has said that Vietravel has resumed the tours to Thailand on November 29, and that the two main destination points are Bangkok and Pattaya which have returned to the normal operation.



Vietravel proves to be the first travel firm which has restarted the tours after the floods influenced 2/3 of the Thai territory. The “Return to Thailand” campaign has been launched by Vietravel which will lasts from November 29 to December 20. Under the campaign, the tours to Thailand have been designed as lasting five or six days, while travelers can enjoy the tour fee discount 700,000 dong per travelers.

According to Vietravel, the travel firm’s representative office in Thailand has informed that the atmosphere in the capital city of Bangkok has returned to normal, while the Bangkok airport has become dry and it has been operating well. Supermarkets and shops have been full of goods after the floods, while a lot of shops now opened 24/24 to attract travelers.

Vietravel is now offering the tour fee of 4,990,000 dong for the five day tour to Bangkok-Pattaya and 5,290,000 dong for six day tour to the two cities. The tours depart on Tuesday, Friday and Sunday.

Saigontourist has also informed that it will restart the tours to Thailand by early December. The five-day tours to Bangkok-Pattaya will depart on the first, second, third, 4th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 14th and 15th of December. Especially, travelers will enjoy big tour fee discounts of 1.5-2 million dong per traveler. Saigontourists now offers the tour fee of 5,590,000 dong, not including tax and airport fees.

The tours designed for the new period of traveling to Thailand have been diversified, which ca fit a wide range of travelers, from those who want to save money to those who want to high best quality services. Especially, the travel firm also has the tour with which people can associate traveling with playing golf.



Other international travel firms have also said they are planning to resume providing tours to Thai in mid December, after they can update the flight schedule of Vietnam Airlines and update information with the Thai Tourism Department, in order to minimize the risks to travelers.

When asked when the resumption time has been slated for mid December, the representatives of the firms said that the floods in Thailand have not gone down entirely, while Bangkok, which has just escaped from the floods, needs some more time to become clean again. Only by that time, should they begin providing tours again to ensure that the risks can be minimized, while travelers can be safe from epidemics.

However, the travel firms have admitted that they would like to restart the tours as soon as possible. The tours to Thailand are the tourism products developed by all Vietnamese travel firms, because these are the most popular tours to the destinations in Asia. The interruption of the tours has caused big losses to travel firms.

Man has also admitted most travelers canceled the tours to Thailand in the last month after hearing about the prolonged flood. Meanwhile, in 2009 and 2010, travel firms once also had to stop providing tours to Thailand, but just for a short time, and travelers agreed to wait and delay their departure time.

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He has also admitted that many travelers may feel worried about the situation in Thailand and may not decide to travel to Thailand these days. However, he keeps optimistic about the sale promotion campaigns launched by both Vietnamese and Thai travel firms. He thinks that the tour fee reductions would help attract more travelers, especially when the Christmas and 2012 New Year are coming.