Travel firms monitor fresh ruble fall

A representative of a travel firm, who declined to be named, told theDaily that the company has prepared a plan for the year-end travelseason but the scale of the plan might be reduced if the Russiancurrency slides further against the U.S. dollar as this would affect thenumber of Russian visitors to Vietnam.

He said if the greenback trades at around 50 rubles per dollar, hiscompany could try to maintain operations to wait for better days.

Hoang Thi Phong Thu, chairwoman of International Travel Pegas VietnamCo. Ltd. (Pegas Travel Vietnam), said the unexpected sharp fall of theruble in the past week had led her firm to delay its decisions on thenumber of chartered flights between Vietnam and Russia as well as theresumption of chartered flights linking HCMC and Russia this October.

“The number of Russian visitors grew strongly when the Russian currencyrose to 30 rubles per dollar. We tried to arrange more flights when theexchange rate was 52 rubles per dollar but the situation is very toughnow,” Thu said.

Thu said it is difficult to woo more Russians and that a number ofRussians have cancelled their bookings for Vietnam tours. The ruble isforecast to dip further. 

She noted that despite all this, Pegas Travel Vietnam still drew upprograms early this month to attract Russian tourists towards theyear-end with the number of chartered flights planned to double thecurrent figure. But these programs are hanging by a thread at themoment.

Russian media early this week reported the travel demand of Russians had plunged sharply.

Data of the General Statistics Office showed 664,985 internationaltourists have visited Vietnam this month, a 7.5% rise from a year ago.However, the number of international arrivals in the first eight monthsof this year has fallen by more than 400,000 year-on-year to over 5.06million.

Meanwhile, the number of domestic tourists in the period has been 45.8million and tourism revenues have picked up 2.7% to nearly VND235.6trillion.

Travel firms monitor fresh ruble fall

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