Vietnam travel - More domestic tourists travel abroad

About 172,000 tourists from Ho Chi Minh City and its adjacent provinces went through the southern Tan Son Nhat International Airport for overseas business tours, Vietnam holidays or visits to their relatives in the first three months of 2007, according to the city's Department of Tourism.

The figure was 26 percent higher than that of the same period last year, the department added.

Destinations where numerous Vietnamese tourists travel to China, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, and travel to Cambodia.

Last year, the number of domestic tourists making tours abroad was 600,000.

The increase of the domestic passengers' flow abroad was attributed to simplified entry-exit procedures and the better income of people. Moreover, airlines vie with each other to offer low ticket prices, that are reduced by 20-40 percent. Low-cost airways as Tiger Airways, Air Asia and others also actuate numerous sale-off programmes, that also helped to pull down ticket prices.

Vietnam travel service company, Saigontourist, in the first three months of this year saw an encouraging increase as it provided tours for 4,000 domestic tourists, up 10 percent year-on-year.

Particularly, more and more tourists booked for long-time tours and MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) tours.

To meet the changing demands of tourists, the company has designed new Vietnam package tours for solitary tourists and expanded to other markets such as the US, South Africa, Japan, Europe, India and Nepal..

(Source: VNA)