As Vietnam welcomes 4.5 million foreign arrivals for tourism and business every year, it’s become a matter of high necessity for telecommunication service providers to offer packages catering to their best interests, said a report on the Thanh nien (Young people) newspaper.

The packages are not simply to offer visitors special and reasonable rates, but more importantly to provide them with basic services and full and quick information and explanation, so they can feel satisfied, insiders were quoted as saying.

Diversifying packages to users’ demand is actually a trend recommended by international experts. Telcos have to always meet the best of customers’ requirements through a flexible system of packages.

However, the introduction of packages exclusively designed for foreign tourists in the recent past is a smart move and it shows how fast Vietnamese telcos have been in catching up with the market.

Happy Tourist launched by MobiFone on January 1 is an example.

As designed only for foreign visitors to Vietnam, the package contains very special functions.

It’s not a package for first-timers. But for the first time, foreign visitors in the country can use both call and data services exactly as they need to.

The package has two options - Happy Tourist Data allowing data and SMS services and Happy Tourist Voice & Data for call, SMS and data services. Each subscription costs 250,000 VND (12 USD) for a SIM card and an account card worth 200,000 VND.

It is designed for pre-paid subscribers and especially built with usage instructions in six languages: English, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese.

If one needs to know more details about the package, they can even call to the network number 9393 for free information in five languages: English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Khmer.

That will save visitors from awkward situation caused by language barriers when using Vietnamese mobile phone services.

The package rates also protect them from huge phone call bills.

The SMS rate at Happy Tourist Data package is 350 VND a message to domestic networks and 2,500 VND to international ones, which is around the rates for post-paid subscribers in Vietnam and surely much better than roaming or using normal SIM cards.

The users can also make overseas calls for less than 4,000 VND a minute, a rate insiders considered “really comfortable” compared to those in nearby countries.

Happy Tourist’s first customers was Andromeda, the Swedish rock band who joined MobiFone Rockstorm 2013, a rock tour across Vietnam initiated and organised by MobiFone. The band members said they decided to try the package after being convinced by its introduction about special rates and other advantages they could enjoy.

Upon positive response from foreign tourists to the package, Nguyen Dinh Chien, Deputy General Director of MobiFone, said the tourists’ demand for telecommunications services in Vietnam has increased significantly of late.

Chien said his company will continue upgrading its network and building more special packages.

“We want to contribute to boost Vietnam’s tourism industry,” he was quoted as saying by the newspaper.-VNA