Travel agencies in HCMC are optimistic that their tours for the upcoming holidays, particularly the New Year, will sell well when there are four days off.

Preliminary statistics of travel companies in the city showed bookings of domestic and overseas tours during the New Year holiday are at least 10% higher than the same period last year.

Tran Thi Bao Thu, marketing and communications director of Fiditour Joint Stock Company, told the Daily that bookings of the company’s New Year tour programs have gone up 25-28% year-on-year.

The best-selling tours take in coastal areas such as Phu Quoc and Nha Trang and northern destinations Hanoi and Sapa, as well as Singapore and Thailand. A number of tour operators have stopped receiving new bookings of Sapa tours on certain days.

Thu said Fiditour has sold out HCMC-Sapa tours which cost nearly VND7 million per person.

Huynh Thanh Viet, retail director of Lua Viet Tours, said more guests have chosen Phu Quoc Island off mainland Kien Giang and destinations in central Vietnam to spend their vacations. The number of buyers of Phu Quoc trips arranged by the company has surged 30% against a year earlier.

Lam Thi Quynh Thu, deputy director of marketing and communications at Saigontourist Travel Service Co., said the company has attracted more than 17,000 guests for its holiday tours, a year-on-year rise of 10-15%.

Thu expected travelers will continue to register for domestic tours and those of Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia until the last days of 2014.

According to travel firms, Phu Quoc and Sapa have attracted more bookings as Vinpearl Resort and its entertainment complex Vinpearl Land have just been up and running on the island while traveling from Hanoi to northern Lao Cai Province’s resort town of Sapa has been made easier since the Hanoi-Lao Cai Expressway was opened to traffic earlier this year.

Travel firms do not revise up their tour prices in order to retain customers.