A marketing campaign encouraging Vietnamese to escape the daily grind of day to day living and become a tourist in their own country has been launched by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST).

Through the campaign, Vietnam will promote itself to domestic holiday makers as an economical alternative to foreign travel. The programme is receiving widespread support from local travel agencies.

The campaign also hopes to instill a travel culture in many parts of the nation as well, especially among previously disadvantaged communities and improve tourism product development and diversification.

The development and packaging of affordable domestic products for local consumers is viewed as a key activity of the MCST to increase domestic tourism revenue and volumes.

Saigontourist, one of Vietnam’s leading tour operators, in turn reports that it has launched a number of highly competitively priced tours to destinations in Da Lat, Nha Trang, Phan Thiet and Hanoi to welcome the New-Year.

The company is also featuring a large number of domestic travel packages to popular destinations throughout the country from now until the end of 2015 as part of a concerted effort to boost domestic tourism, a company representative said.

Tours to the Central Highlands region such as riding elephants around the M’nong ethnic group villages and coffee production tours are expected to be particularly hot travel tours.   

For her part, Hoang Le Quyen, deputy general director of Hoa Binh Travel Company said her agency is committed to not raising tour prices and supplying the best of tourism services to customers.

Lam Thai Hien, staff in charge of communications of Viet Travel Company echoed Quyen sentiments saying her company also is paying attention to tour to  prices and has discounted many to prices lower than last year.

Our commitment is to keep prices lower than last year with improved quality, Hien said.

Vietnam Airlines, Vietjet Air, and Jestar Pacific have also joined hands in the effort to promote domestic tourism.

For calendar year 2014, Vietnam Airlines and Vietjet Air in collaboration with 11 travel agencies in the city have issued 49,767 travel tickets says Tran The Dung, Deputy Head of domestic tourism stimulus promotion group, under the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Association.

With the great assistance of local functional agencies, many travel operators and airlines have work hand in hand to launch promotional campaigns encouraging Vietnamese to ‘go on holiday without leaving their country’.

The local campaign is expected not only to stimulate domestic leisure travel says the MCST, but also to contribute to increasing foreign tourism by creating a nation of enthusiastic and passionate tourists who become promoters of their own country’s attractions.