Airfare prices increase, summer tourism worries

Customers refer to tours at Viet Flow International Travel Company Limited

Hesitating to choose a tour

For many years now, Ms. D.TD, principal of a kindergarten in Kinh Mon town, has organized domestic summer trips for school staff and teachers. However, this year, up to this point, Ms. D. is still wondering where to choose to travel. “This year, school staff and teachers want to travel and visit Quy Nhon. However, after researching, I found that the round-trip airfare from Hanoi to Quy Nhon is over 4.2 million VND/person. Then there are the costs of food, accommodation, entertainment... Adding up, it's tens of millions of VND per person. When hearing this price, everyone is worried because it's too high,” Ms. D. said.

Mr. Tran Van Huy (in Hai Duong City) had planned to take his family to Phu Quoc this summer, but it seems that his family's plan will be difficult to come true. "Since last month, I have occasionally visited some websites to look for air tickets, but I always see that the cheapest round-trip economy class ticket is over 3 million VND/person, so I have not been able to buy one yet," Mr. Huy shared.

Having been a travel agent for more than 5 years, Ms. Vu Ngoc Van Anh (in Hai Duong City) had to admit that it has never been as difficult to book tours as this year. “In previous years, by this time, my summer schedule was fully booked, including individual customers and group customers from agencies and businesses. This year, the number of customers booking domestic summer tours is less than 1/3 of previous years. The main reason is that the price of air tickets has increased, causing tour and trip costs to increase a lot,” Ms. Van Anh said.

According to Ms. Hoang Thi Thuy, Director of Dong Chuy Viet International Travel Co., Ltd., air tours are often associated with long-distance tours, distances of 500 km or more. In recent years, these tours have accounted for the majority of the company's tourism products. This year, the number of customers looking for tours and services is similar to last year, but the rate of "final" customers is only about 50% compared to previous years because of the need to balance costs when airfares are adjusted to increase the ceiling.

Some agents and travel companies said that if they "hold" a large number of airline tickets, they will get good discounts from airlines, reducing tour prices. But because airfare prices are high this year, customers are not willing to buy tours, so they do not dare to "hold" tickets. Because if they buy tickets but no one goes, they will lose all the money.

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Ceiling prices on domestic flights have been adjusted to increase by 5% compared to the previous level (illustrative photo)

Faced with the rising airfares affecting travel costs, travel agencies have made appropriate adjustments to ensure business operations and meet the needs of leisure and travel. Many people have also taken measures to cope with the rising airfares.

While waiting to see if he could find cheap air tickets, Mr. Tran Van Huy proactively researched some tourist destinations in the northern mountainous provinces so that he could change direction to those places. “I think Son La or Hoa Binh are quite good, there are many beautiful landscapes, easy to move around. Children can also explore and immerse themselves in nature. More importantly, the prices are cheap. Sometimes staying here for a few days costs just as much as buying a plane ticket to Quy Nhon,” said Mr. Huy.

Ms. D.TD said that there is a possibility of organizing overseas trips for teachers because there are tours that are cheaper than domestic tours. “I researched and found that there is a 5-day, 4-night tour to Thailand that costs just over 8 million VND, the same price as a trip to Quy Nhon, so I am asking for opinions from staff and teachers. If most of them agree, we will choose to go on this tour,” Ms. D. said.

Instead of advising customers to go on domestic tours by plane, Ms. Vu Ngoc Van Anh advises customers to go on foreign tours such as Thailand, Korea or China with similar prices. There are even tours to China close to Vietnam, going for 3 days 2 nights costing over 2 million VND.

According to Ms. Hoang Thi Thuy, to meet customer needs and build suitable tour costs, Dong Chay Viet International Travel Company Limited has built a number of tours by road, train, and flight during off-peak hours such as: Da Nang, Hue, Saigon - Mui Ne...

On March 1, Circular No. 34/2023 of the Ministry of Transport supplementing a number of articles of Circular No. 17/2019 adjusting the ceiling price of air tickets took effect.

According to the new circular, the ceiling price on domestic routes is adjusted to increase by 5% compared to the previous level. Specifically, routes with a distance of less than 500 km have a ceiling price of 1.6 million VND/ticket/way for socio-economic development routes and 1.7 million VND/ticket/way for other routes. The remaining groups of routes have a price increase of 50,000 - 250,000 VND/ticket/way compared to the old regulations, depending on the length of each route.

For flights from 500 km to under 850 km, the ceiling price is 2,250,000 VND/ticket/way; for flights from 850 km to under 1,000 km, the maximum price is 2,890,000 VND/ticket/way; for flights from 1,000 km to under 1,280 km, the ceiling price is 3.4 million VND/ticket/way and for flights from 1,280 km or more, the ceiling price is 4 million VND/ticket/way.

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