Service providers sting themselves by overcharging travelers | Look At Vietnam

Service providers sting themselves by overcharging travelers

May 10, 2012

LookAtVietnam – Hotel, restaurants, resorts, carriers all try to overcharge
travelers on holidays or in high tourism season, which has made domestic
travelers turn their backs to domestic tours.

Travel firms have complained that the input service fees have been increasing
dramatically, especially on rush days, thus making domestic tours less
attractive to Vietnamese people. Travelers now tend to choose outbound tours,
which have lower tour fees, instead domestic expensive and monotonous tours.
Boring tours
Nguyen Van My, Director of Lua Viet travel firm, complained that it’s now very
difficult to sell domestic tours because of the high fees.
The fees of the tours to the central region on the May holiday, for example,
jumped to 5-6 million dong per traveler, much higher than the tour fee to
Cambodia at 3.6-3.7 million dong. Especially, the tour fees to Hanoi sometimes
are even higher than that to Singapore.
Outbound tours also attract Vietnamese travelers with their diversified and
interesting schedules. Meanwhile, domestic tours have not been diversified, thus
making travelers bored.
In fact, travel firms realized the problem many years ago. However, they still
hesitate to re-design tours, because this would be very costly. Meanwhile, their
ideas could be easily “stolen” by others, which would lead to the loss.
Vietnamese travelers do not have the habit of booking tours many months or one
year in advance. They only call to book tours in sudden inspiration. This
results in the increases of the hotel room rates due to the overloading, forcing
travelers to return home or move to other hotels.
My has emphasized that in the big difficulties, travel firms need to become more
professional with long term development strategies, instead of “living from hand
to mouth.” It’s now the right time for travel firms to join forces to develop,
instead of spontaneously dumping the market to scramble for clients.
Regional countries are facing the same difficulties like Vietnam in the context
of the global economic crisis. However, they still can stand firmly thanks to
the professional development strategy and the state’s support. They have not
only slashed tour fees to stimulate the demand, but have also diversified
services to attract more travelers.
Local authorities turn deaf ear to overcharging evil
Tran Van Long, Director of Du Lich Viet, complained that domestic tours were
sold very well in previous years, but the sale has been going very slowly so far
this year.
Long has affirmed that this should not be blamed on the economic crisis, because
this is the problem being faced by all countries in the world.
He has pointed out that service providers are killing themselves by overcharging
travelers on peak days. They raise the hotel room rates, meal service and
transport service fees on long holidays, when the travel demand increases. As a
result, Vietnamese travelers have turned their backs to domestic tours.
Nguyen Thi Khanh, Deputy Chair of the HCM City Tourism Association, has affirmed
that local service providers still can overcharge travelers because the local
authorities turn a deaf ear on the problem.
“The fact that local authorities sell excursion tickets to travelers and
visitors to Ha Long Bay has badly affected the image of a destination which has
been recognized as one of the natural wonders,” Khanh said.
The HCM City Tourism Association plans to work out with local authorities to
call on local service providers to reduce the service fees, so as to help travel
firms slash tour fees. After Vietnam Airlines slashes the airfare by 40 percent,
other service providers also need to slash their service fees, so that the
domestic tour fees can be reduced.
Source: NLD