About 68 percent of surveyed people in Vietnam stated their intent to resume travelling by the last quarter of 2020. (Photo: VNA)

The traveller survey was conducted in the midst of Vietnam’s second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic by Indochina Capital and Wink Hotels.

It reveals the travel habits and preferences of travellers in Vietnam, including health and safety-related factors that would influence their hotel accommodation decisions.  

Conducted in mid-August, the survey totalled 700 participants from first-tier cities, of which 90 percent were Vietnamese and 10 percent were foreigners. Insights gained from the responses were drawn to aid hoteliers and hospitality players grasp the new domestic tourism landscape, as the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism pushes forward domestic tourism stimulus programmes and travel and hospitality companies gear up to launch new campaigns.

A silver lining amid the COVID-19 pandemic is the fact that Vietnam travellers are as keen to travel as they were pre-pandemic – domestic travel grew from 57 million to 90 million from 2015 to 2019 and previous surveys have shown that Vietnamese customers are increasingly willing to spend more on holidays.

Indochina Capital and Wink Hotels’ latest survey reinforces this trend as 99.7 percent of respondents confirmed they travel at least once a year domestically for leisure purposes, while 83.7 percent stated they travel at least twice a year.

“Tourism and real estate are bound to be major building blocks for economic recovery. As Vietnam travellers are already planning their next domestic trip, the economy is going to rely on consumers to return to their pre-COVID-19 spending levels, which should be enabled by travel.

With borders slowly and carefully being reopened, the domestic market will be the main driver for economic recovery. The impressive handling of COVID-19 has pushed Vietnam’s position forward as a promising investment destination, and with this survey, we want to highlight elements which will help hoteliers and tourism-focused real estate owners enhance their financial returns,” said Michael Piro, COO, Indochina Capital and CEO, Wink Hotels.

The survey highlights the dominance of online channels for brand touchpoint and accommodation booking as 64 percent of travellers will use online travel agencies to conduct their bookings and 91 percent rely on digital advertisements for their hotel browsing.

The survey also underlines Vietnam travellers’ preference for short leisure trips of less than four nights, with the majority of business trips lasting no more than two nights. On pricing strategies, just a quarter of respondents were willing to spend above 2 million VND (about 91 USD) per night on personal trips, and they spend even less on business trips./.VNA

Quality tours at affordable prices needed to stimulate tourism market

High-quality, affordably priced tours are needed to attract local tourists, especially following the second COVID-19 outbreak that occurred this summer, experts have said.