A five-day familiarisation trip to Andaman coast provinces by representatives from 20 travel agencies from Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh wrapped up yesterday (Sept 22).
The “Mega Fam Trip” saw the delegation from Vietnam travel to Phang Nga, Krabi, and Phuket in order to appraise tourist attractions, local cuisine and cultures, and experience new tourist attractions.
On Saturday, the Vietnamese delegation had the chance to talk and broker deals with 55 travel operators at the Angsana Laguna Phuket resort on Phuket’s west coast with the “Table Top Sales: Vietnam Mega Fam Trip 2019” event.
Among the key announcement during the fam trip was that Vietnam Airlines will start operating direct flights to Phuket on Oct 27. The airline will operate three flights a week: on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays.
“There are more than 280 flights from Vietnam to Thailand every week,” explained Napasorn Kakai, chief of the TAT office in Ho Chi Minh.
“VietJet Air already operates a direct flight from Vietnam to Phuket every day,” she added.
Last year, more than 1 million Vietnamese tourists of the country’s population of around 97 million visited Thailand, Ms Napasorn said, pointing out that the flights from Vietnam to Bangkok take about 90 minutes.
“A lot of international investors are coming to set up businesses in Vietnam because the national economy is getting better. The number of the middle-class people with high purchasing power has also been increasing rapidly,” Ms Napasorn said.
“Also, Vietnamese families like to travel abroad during the school break, from June to August,” she added.
However, Ms Napasorn did recognsise that high-income earners in Vietnam preferred to travel European countries.