Most tourism companies have suspended tours to Bangkok given their deep concerns over the ongoing complicated security situation in the capital city of Thailand, saying they will have to watch movements there in the next few days.

The decision to stop tours to Bangkok was taken as Thai anti-government demonstrators on Monday started blocking important traffic points. However, there are still Vietnamese visitors in the city.

Saigontourist Travel Service Company informed that the last group of the firm’s customers completed their touring program in Bangkok and came back home on Sunday.

Saigontourist offered daily tours to Thailand before but the firm has sent no tours to the Southeast Asian nation as of now.

Saigontourist has yet to confirm when to resume Bangkok tours.

Similar to Saigontourist, other tour operators in HCMC were also watching the situation in Bangkok on Monday. A number of companies have stopped the tours as of the end of this week and they have even suspended selling tours to Thailand for Tet although this is a big business season of tours to Thailand.

“We have halted Thai tours for two weeks and have no plans to sell such tours for Tet because we have no idea how the situation will turn out,” said Phan Dinh Hue, director of Viet Circle Travel.

As of Monday afternoon, multiple tourism enterprises in HCMC told the Daily that they had no visitors touring Bangkok for now and that the tours were being suspended temporarily. In fact, Vietravel with 30 tourists traveling in Bangkok is among few local companies which still had visitors in the city. Vietravel only stopped launching Thai tours last Friday and now it is still offering the tours every day.

“We have contacted our staff members in Bangkok and were told that visitors are touring there as normal. As Thai demonstrators only blocked six main streets in Bangkok, many major sightseeing routes in the city are still in operation as normal,” Nguyen Minh Man, communications director of Vietravel, informed.

In related news, a number of air carriers running the Vietnam-Thailand services said they still carried out flights to Thailand on Monday.

A representative of the low-cost carrier VietJetAir said that on Monday its flights from Vietnam to Thailand still departed as normal. However, the occupancy of the air route showed a decline compared to previous days, said the representative but he refused to give the specific figure.

The national flag carrier Vietnam Airlines said operation of its flights remained normal and that it would inform passengers of schedule changes if any.

* The Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has asked tourism companies to make thorough check on information of Israel tour buyers to prevent visitors from fleeing and hiding in Israel as reported recently.

As per a document signed by Nguyen Manh Cuong, deputy head of VNAT, the authority has received reports from tourism enterprises saying several local package tour buyers had fled from their tours to seek ways to live in Israel illegally.

Cuong therefore requested firms operating tours to Israel to carefully check information of customers before selling the service to them, particularly those in such localities as Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Hai Duong given most tourists running away are from these provinces.

Local firms are demanded to immediately keep competent authorities informed of any suspicious signals seen at visitors in order to stop them from committing the violation in a timely manner. When finding any evidence proving the visitors have plans to take flight, the tour operators must immediately request the host country to report the problem to police to stop the schemes as well as reporting it to the Vietnamese Embassy in Israel besides other relevant authorities.

VNAT also asked tour operators to closely cooperate with their partners in Israel to stringently supervise the activities of visitors in a journey.

This is the first time that VNAT has released a document to cope with runaway visitors taking advantage of tours to other countries. However, the tourism authority declined to elaborate on the specific number of runaway visitors.

As prices of tours to Israel are pretty high, there are not many tourism companies running these tours. Pilgrimage tours have attracted numerous visitors choosing to go to Israel, especially in the period from April to September annually.

Dinh Kim Phuong, director of Carnival Tours, which is known as a leading Israel tour provider, informed that her enterprise was running tours to Israel on a monthly basis. The tour price is around VND48 million a person for a journey lasting for seven to eight days, with its sales growing strongly. However, no visitors of Carnival Tours have run away in Israel up to now, Phuong said.

Carnival Tours has screened customers thoroughly and has refused several suspicious visitors, Phuong noted. With the experiences of arranging tours, the company select visitors based on not only residence areas or ages but also many other elements. Upon any suspicious information detected, the firm will refuse customers even if it already received their registration for visa procedures, she added.

VN demand for Thailand tours drops

Discount tours attract 34,000 buyers

Given concern about escalating protests in Bangkok, the number of tourists buying Thailand tours has declined by up to 40% at some travel companies while other firms have suspended selling Thailand tours on poor demand.

Certain travel firms in HCMC are still arranging Thailand tours during the Lunar New Year holiday, or Tet, but the number of customers is down some 30% year-on-year.

Many customers had come explore information about Thailand tours but remained undecided until on Sunday when a big protest was scheduled in Bangkok.

Nguyen Minh Man, marketing manager at Vietravel, said the firm still has daily tour departures to Thailand but the number of tourists has edged down by 30%.

Meanwhile, Fiditour reported a 32% drop in tourists to Thailand in December 2013.

Thailand tours account for a large proportion of outbound tour sales at many travel firms in HCMC.

Instead of canceling Thailand tours, some firms have suggested their clients switch to other destinations in the region such as Singapore and Malaysia.

“Partner airlines allow us to return tickets. We are very willing to change destinations if our customers agree,” said Ta Thi Cam Vinh, outbound manager at Ben Thanh Tourist.

However, some firms have decided to suspend tours to Thailand until this week for fear of the big rally. “We have decided to temporarily stop taking our customers to Thailand,” said Tu Quy Thanh, director of Lien Bang Travelink.

The Tourism Authority of Thailand in HCMC said a statement released last Friday that transport systems, tourism services and hospitals in Bangkok and other parts of Thailand remain in service as usual.

However, the authority recommends tourists avoid crowded places due to concerns over traffic congestion.

* Tourism companies in HCMC, Vietnam Airlines and VietJetAir jointly sold package tours for more than 34,100 visitors in a discount program lasting about eight months in 2013, up 115% compared to the number of discount tour buyers in 2012.

Tran The Dung, deputy head of the promotion unit for domestic travel demand stimulus, said the number of customers had only been reported by 11 of 12 tourism enterprises joining the stimulus program. Package tours to Phu Quoc, Con Dao, Nha Trang, Quy Nhon, Danang, Hue and Hanoi became attractive to customers, Dung said.

Vietnam Airlines last April continued cooperating with tourism companies in HCMC to offer discounted air tickets for a number of air routes allowing tour operators to cut tour prices.

Along with the discounts of air tickets, companies in the tourism industry collaborated with several service suppliers to cut package tour prices by 30-40%. The program after that also attracted the participation of VietJetAir.

According to Dung, the cooperation between the tourism and aviation firms not only attracted more than 34,000 tour buyers but also offered opportunities for tourism firms to boost sales.

Source: SGT