Ba Ria-Vung Tau (VNA) – The southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau is entering the low tourist season, providing some down time for local travel firms to renovate and upgrade service quality, facilities, and human resources to stimulate demand.
Quiet destination
After a busy period from January to the end of August, with 17% growth in both tourist number and revenue, Ba Ria Vung Tau has entered the low domestic tourist season from September as kids are back to school and the storm season is in full swing.
A survey covering local hotels and resorts revealed that the number of staying tourists has decreased sharply, occupying only 10-20% of rooms on weekdays, and 50%-60% on weekends. Some facilities closed at the beginning of the week because they only received 1 or 2 room bookings.
A representative from Carmelina Beach Resort said that since the beginning of September, its room occupancy rate has been at 10-20% on weekdays and 30-40% on weekends.
In the middle of September, realising that market demand had dropped sharply, the resort decided to close on weekdays to focus on maintenance and repair of facilities and staff training, said the representative.
For hotels and resorts whose traditional guests are company staff from Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai and Binh Duong, this is a quiet year due to economic difficulty, forcing companies to cut spending on company trips. They've also lost market share to Phan Thiet in Binh Thuan province and Nha Trang in Khanh Hoa province where new expressways have been put into operation.
Improving service quality, stimulating travel demand
Many local travel firms have made full use of the gap to upgrade infrastructure, renew equipment, enhance service quality and staff training or organise staff team building trips.
Meanwhile, they have strengthened the promotion of new products and collected feedback from customers and partners to design travel promotion strategies, thus attracting more tourists, especially through the online channel.
Nguyen Van Hung, Deputy Director of Ben Thanh-Ho Tram branch of Ben Thanh Group, the developer of Emerald Ho Tram Resort, said that the five-star resort offers different packages for tourists at prices from 1.23 million VND (49.98 USD).
From mid-October 2024, Carmelina Beach Resort will coordinate with PPA Tour Australia to organise the Vietnam open pickleball tournament at the resort. The October 18-20 tournament is expected to attract 400 domestic and foreign athletes. In addition, this resort will also promote online service sales channels to the Western European market to attract winter guests.
Meanwhile, The Grand Ho Tram plans to host a martial arts event and welcome famtrip groups from India and the Republic of Korea.
Trinh Hang, Director of the Tourism Department of Ba Ria-Vung Tau said that the department is promoting connections with the Korean and Indian markets and countries with cold winter to lure more tourists in the low-demand season. It has also developed a plan to organise a tourism week in November, he said./.
