Vietnam Airlines has launched a month-long program starting from mid-October named Next Ho Chi Minh City aimed at luring Japanese visitors as arrivals from this country have fallen after the earthquake and tsunami disasters.
Next Ho Chi Minh City includes multiple image promotion activities for Japanese tourists. Incentives include presenting shopping coupons to the first 1,000 tourists booking ticket to Vietnam since the program kickoff, discounting ticket prices for certain travel agencies and inviting Japanese tour operators to Vietnam, said Nguyen Thuong Hoang Hai, sales and marketing manager of Vietnam Airlines.
“Japan is one of our most important markets. With this program, we hope to recover the passenger number, refresh HCMC as a destination and connect it with other tourist destinations like Danang, Khanh Hoa and Quang Nam,†he said at the introduction conference in HCMC on Tuesday.
The program draws the participation of 40 travel agencies from Japan along with the resorts and hotels in Danang, Khanh Hoa, Quang Nam and HCMC. Representatives of the Japanese tour operators will go on a trip to HCMC and the Mekong Delta to study local tourism products.
Vietnam Airlines currently operates eight services with 46 trips a week connecting HCMC and Hanoi with four big cities in Japan namely Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya and Fukuoka. In 2010, the air carrier transported some 440,000 passengers on these routes.
According to Vietnam Airlines, the number of Japanese passengers to Vietnam took nosedive after the earthquake and tsunami, but started to bounce back with the number this year to date equal to that in 2010. The airline expected the figure to reach 500,000 this year.
Beside Vietnam Airlines, the local tourism promotion agencies and companies are rolling out their plans to attract Japanese tourists. For instance, HCMC authorities are having discussions with Cambodia’s Ministry of Tourism to jointly deploy a promotion program in Japan next year.