About 9 million domestic tourists travelling or visiting family during the last Lunar New Year, plus a sharp increase in international arrivals compared to New Year's holidays, and the high rate of on-time departures of the whole industry, are "bright spots" of the aviation industry at the beginning of the year, setting a positive expectation for the aviation, tourism sectors this year.

Domestic tourists increase by nearly 50%

According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, the tourism sector served about 9 million domestic tourists during the six days of the Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, up about 47.5% over the previous Tet.

The number of international visitors to Vietnam during the Lunar New Year also increased sharply, compared to the New Year 2023 holiday, after China's reopening.

Director General of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) Nguyen Trung Khanh, assessed that these are positive signals of tourism activities in maintaining the recovery momentum and completely overcoming difficulties after two years of the epidemic.

The return of international visitors to Vietnam also proves the right and timely direction of the Vietnamese tourism industry in restructuring the visitor market and actively renewing its products.

In 2023, not only the Republic of Korea but also other key markets of Vietnam, such as China and Japan, are forecasted to grow again strongly.

Currently, most of the aviation businesses and tourism sectors are researching, building and launching new and unique products, with quality services and utilities with attractive costs, to ready the scenario to welcome a large number of international visitors to Vietnam.

Leaders of Vietfoot Travel said that by 2023, Vietnam's tourism industry in general and businesses in the sectors of travel, event, accommodation and food, in particular, will have the opportunity to boom and develop again. The tourism industry may soon return to the same growth momentum as in 2019.

In addition, during this year's Lunar New Year holiday, tourists tend to choose high-class accommodation establishments, to travel in the form of group travel with friends or family. During the Lunar New Year holiday alone, room occupancy in many provinces and cities, such as Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Thuan, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Khanh Hoa, and Can Tho, reached between 75% to 85%. Which, many three-star and five-star accommodation establishments have room occupancy of more than 95%.

The aviation sector makes efforts

Taking on the role of a lever to promote the economic-tourism industries to quickly recover, the aviation sector has also been making efforts to catch up with the new trend.

During the last Lunar New Year, statistics from the Ministry of Transport showed that domestic airports welcomed more than 1.9 million passengers, an increase of 58% compared to the Lunar New Year 2022 holiday. Which, airlines of Vietnam transported more than 967,000 passengers, up 60.7% over the same period. The number of flights taking off/landing at Vietnamese airports is about 13,000 flights, up 39% over last year.

Despite the outstanding growth in the number of passengers, airlines still successfully maintained a high rate of on-time flights. According to data from the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam, in the period from December 19, 2022, to January 18, 2023, the average On-Time Performance (OTP) rate of the whole industry reached 95.3%.

VNDirect Securities Corporation said that the aviation and tourism sectors will experience outstanding growth from 2023, thanks to the strong recovery of the international market.

According to forecasts, Vietnam's international arrivals can fully recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2024 (equal to 105.2% of 2019's level) and possibly equal to 118.9% of 2019's level in 2025.

The growth momentum of domestic tourism over the past year, combined with the prosperous prospect of international tourism in 2023, is opening a bright picture for Vietnam's tourism industry.

Source: nhandan.vn