China tours are popular on April 30

Many tours to China were booked by Vietnamese tourists as early as the beginning of April thanks to competitive prices and beautiful spring destination scenery.

Major travel agencies have recorded strong growth in Chinese tours with soaring purchasing power and tour booking speeds surpassing previous years. This shows that the Chinese market is rising to the top of the list of most popular foreign destinations for Vietnamese tourists.

Ms. Nguyen Nguyet Van Khanh, Director of Marketing and Communications Department of Vietravel , said that the number of customers booking tours to China increased by at least 20-30% compared to the same period last year, many tour groups such as Nghi Xuong - Truong Gia Gioi - Phuong Hoang Ancient Town were fully booked early. Vietnam Tourism also reported that the number of customers reached more than 80% of the holiday plan as of April 9, an increase of 25-30% compared to the same period last year, according to Mr. Pham Quoc Khanh, Deputy Director of Hanoi branch.

Many Chinese tours are sold out quickly even though it is still nearly a month before the official holiday. Danh Nam Travel's Lijiang tour departing on April 30 was sold out two months ago; while the April 27 tour was sold out a week ago, and the April 29 tour has few seats left. Besides Lijiang, China's "key" routes such as Beijing - Shanghai or Shanghai single route only have 4-5 seats left.

Vietnamese tourists take photos at Qianmen Old Street, Beijing. Photo: Vietnam Tourism

The Nghi Xuong - Truong Gia Gioi - Thien Mon Son - Tam Du Cave - Phuong Hoang Ancient Town route is the earliest "sold out" product at Vietravel. Ms. Khanh explained that the attraction of this route comes from the combination of majestic natural landscapes, ancient architecture and reasonable prices in the mid-high segment. Many groups have reached maximum capacity and the company is actively working with partners to add more services.

"China is more popular than Korea, Japan, Thailand or Europe," said Ms. Khanh, adding that the destinations have all the attractive factors from diverse prices, cultural depth, majestic landscapes and strong Eastern identity. Danh Nam Travel representative added that social media videos about beautiful Chinese landscapes on TikTok also stimulate the demand for photography tourism among young people.

Kim Anh, a customer in Hanoi, chose the Beijing - Shanghai tour to travel with her family during the holidays. She said she had not paid much attention to Chinese tourism, but the effect of TV dramas and many travel videos on social networks made her want to visit here once. Although the price is over 20 million VND, Kim Anh thinks it is still a reasonable choice compared to domestic tourism when the cost of holidays increases and the experience is limited because of the large number of tourists.

Not only air tours, but also road trips through border gates, especially the Lao Cai international border gate deep into Yunnan, are still popular. Yunnan Group aims to serve 1,500 guests on the occasion of April 30, a sharp increase compared to the number of 800-1,000 guests last year. By early April, they had received nearly 1,000 registrations for holiday tours.

Ms. Hoang Tuyet, a company representative, said that the five-day holiday, combined with the high cost of domestic travel during the holiday, has caused Vietnamese tourists to turn to China. In fact, the price of China land tours has increased by about 20-30% compared to normal days, but is still better than domestic travel by plane.

For example, the 4-day, 4-night Dali - Kunming - Wholesale Market tour departing on April 30 costs about 7.7 million VND; the same as a round-trip airfare from Hanoi to Phu Quoc during the official holidays. In addition to the price, the ability to flexibly increase seats compared to the flight route if there is a need is also the reason why many groups of tourists like the overland tour to China.

Vietnamese tourists at Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in March. Photo: Danh Nam Travel

Similarly, a representative of Viet Travel said that tours through the Ha Khau, Mong Cai, and Lang Son border gates have grown significantly thanks to costs 20-40% lower than air routes, suitable for long holidays. Despite limitations such as long travel time or procedures at the border gate, the company has flexibly adjusted departure times, even going at night to avoid congestion.

This year, Yunnan Group has noticed that the trend of tourists crossing the border gate has begun to change as the number of passport tour purchases has surpassed that of Honghe County - a destination that only requires a passport. According to Ms. Tuyet, many tourists have traveled to Honghe County in the past two years, and now they want to go deeper into Yunnan Province to explore or move to Guangxi to find new experiences.

Travel agencies assess that the April 30 holiday is a golden opportunity to effectively exploit the Chinese market when demand is at a high level. However, the high demand can also cause some famous destinations such as Zhangjiajie, Phoenix Ancient Town, Beijing, and Shanghai to be at risk of being overloaded during peak times. Vietravel representatives said they are proactively renewing products and expanding routes to areas with unique landscapes and cultural identities but not yet overly commercialized, such as Lijiang - Shangrila or Jiuzhaigou - Chengdu.

After the April 30 holiday, Ms. Khanh expects the Chinese market to continue to grow steadily. The company will launch many new products such as Jiuzhaigou in the summer, Xinjiang in the golden autumn, resort tours in Chengdu or trending itineraries such as autumn photo hunting, exploring filming locations and tours for families with children to catch up with the new needs of Vietnamese tourists.

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