Many tours in the North had to be canceled or rescheduled or changed routes.

Flexible for guests to postpone, cancel or change tours

According to representatives of travel agencies in Ho Chi Minh City, this time is considered the tourist season in the northern regions of our country with cool autumn climate and the most beautiful natural scenery.

Every year, this is the time when the mountains and forests of the Northwest, Northeast or the terraced fields change a lot, like wearing a new coat and the sea and sky are also bluer, making destinations such as Ha Long, Sa Pa and the provinces of Cao Bang, Bac Kan... always favored by both domestic and international tourists. Tours to the North account for 30 - 40% of the total number of domestic tours of many units today.

However, the severe devastation caused by storm No. 3 could not be immediately overcome, and many places continued to be severely affected by floods after the storm, disrupting tourism activities in the above localities.

Postponing, canceling or changing tour schedules are solutions being applied by many travel agencies in Ho Chi Minh City to retain tourists after this unavoidable incident. Some agencies even accept to support air ticket change fees for passengers changing tour routes.

Mr. Pham Anh Vu, Deputy General Director of Viet Media and Tourism Company, said that in case tourists want to change or transfer to other routes such as Phu Quoc or the Central region, the company will support the fee for changing air tickets from 800,000 - 2,000,000 VND/passenger, depending on the flight route.

"This is the cost of our company, currently airlines do not have this plan. However, through the survey, the psychology of customers in groups scheduled to depart from September 13 to 20, most still want to keep the tour schedule as it is and wait for information from the company" - Mr. Pham Anh Vu said.

Concerns about long-term effects

Statistics from the units: SaigonTourist, Vietluxtour, Du lich Viet, Best Price show that each unit has 1 to 6 groups of tourists scheduled to depart to visit the affected northern provinces.

Most businesses have agreed and negotiated with customers and partners and received consensus from all parties on changing tourist attractions or transferring to other tour routes or changing departure times.

However, for foreign tourists, missing out on destinations like Ha Long Bay, Sa Pa, Hanoi, and Ninh Binh makes them regretful.

Mr. Bui Thanh Tu, Marketing Director of Best Price Travel Company, said that the company had about 100 foreign guests who planned to travel to Ha Long Bay on September 7-8 but had to cancel their tour, and all of them felt regretful.

According to Mr. Tu, Ha Long Bay, Sa Pa, Hanoi, Ninh Binh are destinations that cannot be missed by foreign tourists when traveling to Vietnam. Many Best Price customers responded that they were very sorry that they could not visit these places during their trip to Vietnam this time. The business also regretted having to make an appointment with customers in the nearest time and promised to serve customers the best to make up for it when they return.

In the short term, storm No. 3 has severely affected partners of travel businesses such as food and beverage service establishments, accommodation facilities, and tourist attractions at the destination. In the long term, the consequences of the storm may spread to travel businesses. Because the impact spreads across many localities and it will take a long time to overcome the consequences of this super storm.

Mr. Pham Anh Vu, Deputy General Director of Viet Media - Tourism Company expressed his concern: “This is the first time that storms and floods have caused widespread impacts in many localities and it will take a long time to fix. This will make it difficult for us to arrange schedules for the upcoming year-end tourism peak. Currently, airlines do not have specific information about policies for travel companies when buying series tickets (group tickets). If localities and destinations cannot fix the problem in the coming time, will these flight tickets be charged when rescheduling or will they be charged when canceling?”

Currently, Ha Long and Sa Pa destinations are temporarily suspending tourism services due to the damage caused by the storm and subsequent floods. Some travel agencies have even completely suspended tours to the Northeastern and Northwestern provinces departing in September.