Travel firms in Vietnam are preparing for a possible upsurge in Chinese tourist arrivals as news reports said Chinese might be discouraged from travelling to South Korea amid diplomatic tension between China and Korea over the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system in the latter.

Korea attracted 16 million foreign tourists last year, with around half of them coming from China.

According to Vietnamese tour operators, Chinese travelers may choose nearby littoral countries such as Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam if the travel restriction applies.

The localities which receive chartered flights from China, such as Danang City, Khanh Hoa Province and Phu Quoc Island, might be the first destinations Chinese tourists would choose to go to.

“It takes two to three months to launch a chartered flight while a scheduled flight requires six months to one year to complete paperwork,” said Tu Quy Thanh, director of Lien bang Travelink.

Speaking to the Daily, travel firms said they had got no news from their Chinese partners. Some of them said that would not be good news because they are facing a lack of hotel rooms and Chinese-speaking guides.

Nearly 2.7 million Chinese tourists came to Vietnam last year, most of them going to key destinations like Danang City and Nha Trang City, which put enormous pressure on services providers.

Nguyen Van Thanh, vice chairman of the Nha Trang-Khanh Hoa Tourism Association, said if Chinese tourists came here in droves, that would be both good and bad news as tourism services providers would be overwhelmed.

Last year, around 600,000 Chinese visited Khanh Hoa Province, with most of them using chartered flights. 

The province’s Cam Ranh International Airport has become overwhelmed with huge numbers of tourists from China and tourism enterprises have advised their customers to visit Dalat City instead.

Three to five-star hotels are favored by Chinese tourists, so their average room occupancy is near 100%.

“A sudden increase of tourists may put a strain on the tourism sector in the short term but give a boost to tourism development in the long term,” Thanh of the Nha Trang-Khanh Hoa Tourism Association.

Meanwhile, Tran Chi Cuong, deputy director of the Department of Tourism of Danang City, said the tourism sector was prepared for a sudden rise in Chinese arrivals. Around 400,000 Chinese toured Danang last year.

There are 25 air routes connecting Danang and China with 81 flights a week.

“We can afford to serve a large number of tourists,” Cuong said.

SGT