Vietnamese spend big money on shopping during overseas trips
Reports have found that the amount of money Vietnamese travelers spend on shopping overseas is higher than the fees of their tour packages.
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After launching a new 7-day, 6-night tour to Azerbaijan and Georgia for this summer, Vietravel had to increase the number of tours because of the unexpectedly high number of travelers, despite the high fee of VND43 million per traveler.
Tran Doan The Duy, deputy CEO of Vietravel, said travel firms must launch new tours regularly and design new itineraries because Vietnamese travelers like new products and don’t want to return to destinations they have already visited.
With increasing high income, more Vietnamese travelers are going abroad. In 2017, besides outbound tours to neighboring countries in ASEAN, Vietnamese travelers also booked tours to Taiwan with the number of travelers up by 170%, and to the Republic of Korea (RoK) and Japan, up by 30%.
Deputy CEO of Fiditour Tran The Dung confirmed that the number of Vietnamese traveling abroad arranged by Fiditour had increased by 25-30% year on year.
A high growth rate of 30% is also seen with tours to the US, Europe and Australia, which are much more expensive.
The Korean Tourism Organization (KTO) reported that more than 330,000 Vietnamese visited the RoK in 2017, an increase of 30% compared with the year before. Vietnam now is the eighth largest market for the RoK.
Vietnamese want to discover other cultures, while tour fees have become affordable and procedures for visas are no longer as complicated as before.
Also, outbound tours are designed well with interesting entertainment and shopping programs.
Tran Van Long, CEO of Du Lich Viet, said Vietnam is among the markets with high potential in the region, with average spending of over US$1,000 per person in Singapore, the RoK, Japan and Thailand.
Dung of Fiditour said the firm’s survey found that average spending had increased from US$500 per traveler three years ago to US$800-1,500.
Vietnamese like to buy products abroad because they are cheaper, and they do have to worry about counterfeit goods.
Nguyen Ngoc Hung, a tour guide, noted that Vietnamese travelers choose tours with shopping programs.
“Vietnamese don’t like exercising. They complain if they have to walk during tours. They are satisfied with tours with a lot of shopping programs,” he said.
“Vietnamese buy electric cookers in Japan, ginseng in South Korea, and cosmetics in Europe,” he said.
