Travel agencies have credited stable prices to higher-than-expected bookings for domestic and overseas tours during the national holidays that ended on May 4, a local newspaper reported.

The tour operators said prices of their tours for the five-day holidays of Vietnam Reunification Day and International Labour Day were almost the same as or slightly higher than those of last year, according to the Saigon Times Daily.

Tran Thi Bao Thu, communications manager at Vietravel, said tour prices inched up just around 5% this year and those clients who made early or group bookings enjoyed special discounts. Vietravel served around 31,000 guests of its domestic tours during the holidays.

The number of customers at Fiditour was also high this holiday with nearly 16,000.

Tourists favoured the domestic tours lasting 4-6 days and taking in seaside destinations like Halong, Danang, Nha Trang, Con Dao and Phu Quoc during the holidays.

Instead of traveling to faraway places, a large number of people decided to enjoy their holidays at recreation centres in Ho Chi Minh City or those tourism areas in its neighboring provinces. Huge crowds were seen at the popular sites like Dam Sen, Suoi Tien and Saigon Botanical Garden from April 30 to May 4.

On April 30 alone, Dam Sen attracted nearly 50,000 visitors while over 37,000 people visited Saigon Botanical Garden. Van Thanh and Binh Quoi 1 tourist sites were also crowded on that day.

The domestic tourism sector thrived during the National Reunification Day and May Day holidays, with sunny weather helping lift the number of vacationers by 20 percent compared to the same period last year.

According to the Administration of Tourism, foreign visitors to Vietnam in April reached 745,980, up 5.11 percent over the previous month and 21.51 percent over April last year.

The result has pushed the total number of foreign tourists in the first four months of this year to more than 3 million, a rise of 25.32 percent over the same period last year. Total earnings from tourism hit 89.4 billion VND, up 29.4 percent year on year.-VNA