Vietnamese travel agents eye Cebu link

CEBU, Philippines – Vietnamese travel agents are now starting to create links with Cebu-based travel agents to take advantage of the huge potential seen on the increasing inbound and outbound tourists between Vietnam and Cebu.

“It is about time we tap Cebu because a lot has changed in the area. We have to update our contacts and look for partners because we need to sell airline seats and make suitable packages for the Vietnamese market,” said Lac Hong Voyages Co. Ltd., director for business development Robert Tan in an interview.

Tan said that there is a continually growing volume of Vietnamese tourists and a lot of these tourists travel to destinations like Malaysia, Thailand, China, Singapore and Cambodia which can be traveled through coach.

“Vietnamese have interests to come to the Philippines. When they travel, it’s usually for shopping, culture and adventure tourism,” said Tan.

“The Philippines is still quite a new destination for Vietnamese especially Cebu. They do not have much information about the area and usually they are skeptical on the issues of safety because of distorted news,” added Lac Hong Voyages Co. Ltd. executive director Jonathan Tran.

Although the number of inbound and outbound tourists from Cebu going to and from Vietnam is still considerably small, there is a huge potential to increase this number if only there is sufficient information that can at the same time strike out the negative perception on safety.

“There is really big potential to increase the inbound and outbound volume of tourists that is going to Cebu from Vietnam and from Cebu to Vietnam because the Philippines and Vietnam has quite the same culture. Vietnamese prefer to travel at short distances,” said Tran.

He said that other than culture, history and shopping, the similarities in religion could also be a good area to explore.

“Vietnam is the second biggest Catholic country in Asia next to the Philippines but then both countries have certain distinctions in practices and even in church architecture as Vietnamese churches are more French while Philippine churches are more Spanish so this could be a good area of interest to explore for both tourists,” added Tran.

He said that the appearance of the Our Lady of Fatima in their La Vang Basilica and in Fatima Binh Trieu in Ho Chi Minh City could be a good area of interest for devout Filipino Catholics to go and see. 

He said that Vietnamese tourists are usually composed by a 60 percent majority of young travelers and a lot travel with big groups and with families so tour packages must include a lot of family-centric tourism activities.

Right now, the only access to Vietnam from the Philippines is though Manila because there is a direct flight going to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon.

Philippine Airlines travel in this route daily while Cebu Pacific travels three times in a week, said Tran.

“Filipinos go to Vietnam usually for business, pleasure and work because a lot are employed in tourism and hospitality industries. They manage health clubs,” Tan said.

He said that after establishing linkage with Cebu-based travel agents, they will organize familiarization tours for travel agents from Manila and Cebu for them to increase their knowledge on Vietnam’s tourism.

They are also looking forward for familiarization tours in the Philippines for Vietnamese travel agents so that they will realize the country’s tourism potential.