Vietnam tour guides money in as summer time travel booms

Le Doan Ngoc Thi, director of HCMC-based Viet Information Firm, mentioned every tour information in his firm acquired six to eight teams of vacationers in June and July, peak months of the summer time travel season.

Every group consisted of 15 to 45 individuals they usually primarily visited coastal resort cities like Vung Tau, Phan Thiet and Nha Trang, Thi mentioned.

The tour guides’ month-to-month earnings throughout this summer time has ranged from VND25-30 million ($1,068-1,281) per individual, equal to pre-pandemic ranges, Thi mentioned.

Nguyen Xuan Dong, a contract tour information who works primarily on island excursions within the beach city of Nha Trang, mentioned he was completely happy that the variety of his tour bookings elevated sharply this summer time.

“The variety of clients reserving my excursions to Nha Trang islands reached greater than 70 p.c of pre-pandemic ranges and I used to be capable of earn a month-to-month earnings of VND30 million this summer time,” Dong mentioned.

Earlier than the pandemic, he would earn round VND35-40 million a month in the course of the summer time season.

“After shedding my earnings for greater than two years due to the Covid pandemic, I really feel happy with what I’ve now and hope the tourism business will rapidly get better to pre-pandemic ranges.”

Le Thanh Duoc in HCMC has needed to work continuous over the previous two months, waking up at 2-3 a.m. to choose up clients on the Tan Son Nhat Airport and solely returning dwelling at midnight.

Duoc mentioned most tour guides are actually paid VND500,000-700,000 a day for every group, excluding different allowances.

Representatives of some travel corporations have additionally confirmed that previously two months, the month-to-month earnings of skilled tour guides was round VND25-30 million.

A consultant of Hanoi-based tour operator Hanoitourist mentioned the typical month-to-month earnings of tour guides within the firm has exceeded pre-pandemic ranges by 15 p.c this summer time.

Nonetheless, the image stays gloomy for tour guides who focus on serving inbound vacationers because the variety of international guests visiting Vietnam after the March 15 reopening stays low.

Within the first seven months this 12 months, Vietnam acquired 733,000 international arrivals, simply 15 p.c of this 12 months’s goal.

Some tour guides who used to concentrate on Chinese language and Russian markets are switching to different jobs to make ends meet as China continues to keep up its zero-Covid coverage and associated restrictions, whereas worldwide flights to Russia have been suspended as a result of conflict towards Ukraine.

Based on the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, there have been 31,000 licensed tour guides in Vietnam earlier than Covid-19 hit the nation in 2020, incomes month-to-month incomes of VND10-40 million.

After the pandemic hit, a lot of them switched to different jobs.

Vacationer locations throughout Vietnam attracted over 23 million home vacationers within the final two months, or over two thirds of the overall quantity within the first six months of the 12 months.

There have been 60.8 million home vacationers within the first half, exceeding the 60 million goal set for the entire 12 months.