A senior official of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) said that on December 15 VNAT began hurriedly compiling a plan on cutting fees on tours for foreign tourists to lure more travellers.

The official said that the plan would be ready for the meeting between VNAT and international travel firms, luxury hotels in HCM City and the national air carrier Vietnam Airlines to be held by the end of this week. Details of the plan, which markets the tour fee decreases will be applied to, how much the tour fees will be cut, and how long the special program will last, will be decided soon.

“For the immediate time,

Vietnam still can attract Russian, Japanese, French, Australian and South Korean travelers who have cancelled tours to India and Thailand if we launch some tours with attractive tour fee decreases,” said Vietnam Airlines’ General Director Pham Ngoc Minh.

Vietnam Airlines has suggested that involved parties join forces to focus on some key markets, in which Vietnamese enterprises can offer competitive products.

Price decreases will be different for different markets, and only travel firms that join the campaign will be able to enjoy preferential prices.

VNAT is going to chair two additional similar meetings in

Hanoi and the central city of Da Nang to announce the decisions on tour fee decreases as soon as possible.

According to Director of the HCM City Culture, Sports and Tourism Department La Quoc Khanh, it is necessary to persuade shops to join forces with travel firms, hotels and air carriers to create low-cost tours.

Thailand, for example, announced the tour fee reduction of $39/traveler for tours associated with shopping, while the travelers are led to shops which registered to join the low-cost tours.

Vietnam witnessed the sharp fall of the tourism industry in 2008 and has forecast a 0% or minus growth rate in the first half of 2009.

A conference discussing ways to lure foreign travelers to

Vietnam was held on December 11. It was criticized as being late but ‘better late than never’.

At the conference, Minh from Vietnam Airlines urged travel firms, hotels and involved parties to compile an action plan to attract more clients in the context of the expanded global financial crisis, the political uncertainties in Thailand, which are expected to take 6-7 months at least to recover, and the terrorism case in Mumbai, India. Minh said that in these conditions, tourists will prefer safe destinations with reasonable tour fees.