Travel firms offer cruise tours with many destinations

Travel firms began advertising cruise tours more than 10 years ago. However, only in recent years has the demand increased. 

Luu Dinh Phuc, CEO of Viettours, said that cruise travelers are mostly from international insurance companies or multinational groups. They fly to Singapore and Malaysia, where they go aboard for entertainment and then back to Vietnam by air.

As for large groups of travelers, they stay in Singapore for one night to attend gala dinners at 5-star hotels.

“In general, a large group of travelers comprises hundreds of members. But we recently served a group of 1,500 travelers,” he said.

Phuc revealed that his travel firm sometimes get orders many days before departure time. For instance, he received bookings for tours to Europe to watch C1 football matches with cruise travel plans.

Travel firms offer cruise tours with many destinations, such as the trans-Southeast Asian tour (Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand), a tour to European countries and to Northeast Asia (Japan and South Korea).

Travelers are informed that they can depart at several ports in Vietnam. However, in most tours, travelers get aboard overseas. They fly first to Singapore, Malaysia and Taiwan and then get aboard there.

More cruisers have joined the market. Previously, only StarCruises joined the market. But now, a lot of cruise firms are welcoming Vietnamese travelers. Princess Cruises has carried out activities to advertise cruise tours to Vietnamese.

It also set up stalls at shopping malls to introduce products to the public.

Travel firms say that cruise tours are still not the choice of the majority of Vietnamese travelers. However, they keep making investments as the market growth rate is satisfactory.

Phan Nguyet Son from Vietravel said most cruise travelers choose short-distance tours of a few days to Southeast Asian countries.

“The tours to Southeast Asian countries have a monthly departure time, while other tours are not frequent,” she said.

However, Son said the growth rate is expected to be 30 percent this year compared with the previous year. Viettravel has begun introducing 40 tours for 2019.

With the presence of more cruisers, the cruise tour fee is now 5-10 percent cheaper. At Vietravel, a 4-day tour to Singapore and Malaysia is VND17 million.

RELATED NEWS

HCM City loses out on cruise tourism without large ports

Sai Gon River tour shows the best of HCM City