I first set foot in Vietnam five years ago. My hobby is wandering around Vietnam all over the place. I loved waking up in the morning listening to the noise of motorcycles in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, which is familiar to us as ‘Saigon’. Through ‘Saigon Morning’, I would like to tell you about the various aspects of Vietnam that I loved.
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Last week, my close friend and his wife said they visited Phu Quoc, an island in southern Vietnam. The number of acquaintances who are planning to go to Phu Quoc for winter vacation has increased significantly. Phu Quoc, located at the southernmost tip of Vietnam, is an island so beautiful that it has earned the nickname ‘Vietnam’s Maldives’, and was selected as one of the ‘Top 10 Best Islands in Asia’ by an American travel magazine for two consecutive years. It is also a popular tourist destination among Vietnamese people as a honeymoon destination. It is said that the number of Korean tourists has increased rapidly recently as the number of flight routes from Korea to Phu Quoc has increased.
Sure enough, when the nationality of foreign tourists visiting Phu Quoc was surveyed, ‘Korea’ ranked first. My younger brother and his wife, who visited Phu Quoc, also shared a review saying, “Wherever you go, there are only Koreans.” They say that the night markets and resorts were full of Koreans.
By the way, it is said that Vietnamese people do not travel to Phu Quoc these days. As the number of domestic tourists plummets, the number of Vietnamese domestic flights to Phu Quoc has decreased, and Phu Quoc City, feeling the crisis, has formed a special enforcement team to improve tourism. What on earth happened?
◇Even a special crackdown team was launched due to the ‘expensive island’ controversy.
Panoramic view of Phu Quoc, one of Vietnam’s famous tourist destinations. It has also become a popular honeymoon destination for many Vietnamese people, but the number of domestic tourists has decreased recently. /Reader provided
Currently, only three places in Vietnam, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Haiphong, maintain domestic flights to Phu Quoc. Domestic flights between Da Nang, Can Tho, and Nha Trang to Phu Quoc are suspended. This is because the number of passengers on that route has decreased as the number of domestic tourists has decreased.
According to Phu Quoc International Airport, from January to May last year, 160,000 to 170,000 Vietnamese people visited Phu Quoc per month, and from July to August of that year, the number of domestic tourists exceeded 200,000 on average per month. However, over the next three months, the number of tourists fell by half, and the number of Vietnamese people who visited Phu Quoc last year decreased by 25% compared to the same period the previous year.
Phu Quoc City pointed out ‘airfare’ as the cause of the sharp decline in tourists. The soaring price of Vietnamese domestic airfare to Phu Quoc was a burden. In fact, from the 29th of last month, which was the year-end season, to January 1st of this year, the first day of the new year, the price of domestic flights from Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi to Phu Quoc soared up to 7 million dong (378,000 won). The price has more than doubled from the beginning of last month, a few weeks ago.
The price of a round-trip ticket from Hanoi in northern Vietnam to Bangkok, Thailand is 4.9 million dong (264,600 won), and the cost of a package tour including airline tickets, hotels, and tour programs is 8 million dong (432,000 won). It is said that airline tickets to Bali, which has a longer flight distance, can be purchased for around 5 million dong (270,000 won). Even among Vietnamese people, there is a saying, “I would rather go abroad than go to Phu Quoc.”
Phu Quoc City explains, “The number of Vietnamese people visiting Phu Quoc has decreased significantly due to the continued surge in airfares last year.” Even before and after Independence Day (September 2nd), a time when many Vietnamese people travel, the number of domestic visitors decreased by about 40% compared to the same period last year. Even during the Unification Day holiday, which runs from late April to early May, the number of tourists decreased by more than 11%.
Some say that airfare is not the only reason Vietnamese people are ignoring Phu Quoc. Vietnamese media point out that “exorbitantly expensive hotel room rates, exorbitant fares, taxi scams, and hard-selling of products to tourists are also reasons for the decline in the number of domestic tourists visiting Phu Quoc.”
Accordingly, last November, Phu Quoc City even formed a special enforcement team to improve the quality of tourism services and crack down on price gouging. The plan was to inspect the quality of services provided by tour guides, taxis, and recreational activities such as canoes and boats, and crack down on unfair charges.
◇Phu Quoc Island filled by Koreans
There is also a movement to focus on ‘foreign tourists’ instead of the reduced domestic tourists in Vietnam. The tourism association of Kien Giang region, where Phu Quoc is located, has prepared various programs to attract group tourists from Taiwan and Malaysia, and to attract Korean tourists. Perhaps thanks to these efforts, the number of foreign tourists who visited Phu Quoc between January and September last year was said to have increased nearly three times to 540,000 compared to the same period the previous year.
Foreign tourists are looking at the night market in Phu Quoc, Vietnam’s southernmost island. Among the foreign tourists who visit Phu Quoc, Koreans account for the largest number. /provided by readers
On the 29th of last month, which was the end of the year, the number of foreigners who entered Phu Quoc via international flights was 3,400, an increase of 1,200 compared to the previous day. On this afternoon alone, eight international flights arrived one after another, delaying the entry process for tourists. In contrast, the number of domestic tourists decreased by about 400 compared to the previous day. It is said that about 10 flights a day fly into Phu Quoc from not only Korea but also Singapore, Mongolia, Hong Kong, and the Czech Republic.
As the number of foreign tourists visiting Phu Quoc increases at the end of the year, the occupancy rate at five-star hotels is said to have reached an average of 80%. Small hotels experienced a virtually ‘full occupancy’ situation as occupancy rates soared to nearly 90%.
The main customers who filled Phu Quoc, which was ignored by the Vietnamese, were Korean tourists. The number of passengers on the Incheon-Phu Quoc route from January to November last year was 296,669, and the number of tourists visiting Phu Quoc from Korea last year is expected to exceed 300,000. Huynh Quang Hung, Chairman of the Phu Quoc People’s Committee, reportedly explained, “More than 35% of foreign tourists visiting Phu Quoc are Korean tourists.” It is estimated that by the end of the year, the number of Korean tourists will be more than half of the foreign tourists visiting Phu Quoc.
Anticipating that more Koreans will visit Phu Quoc, airlines have increased flight routes to Phu Quoc to transport Korean tourists. Last month, Jin Air launched a route between Incheon and Phu Quoc, and VietJet Air, a Vietnamese private airline, launched a new route between Busan and Phu Quoc in the same month. VietJet Air is the first to operate the Phu Quoc route from a local airport other than Incheon Airport. Previously, Korean Air also began operating direct flights between Incheon and Phu Quoc last November.
A Korean construction company is also opening a theme park in Phu Quoc. This is the ‘Ice Jungle’ that Daewoo Engineering & Construction opened in a luxury residential complex in Phu Quoc at the end of last month. A 13,000㎡ ‘night theme park’ with the theme of ice and snow was created in southern Vietnam, where it is difficult to see snow because there is no cold winter. What looks like an ordinary theme park transforms into a winter wonderland at night through media art. It’s snowing, and you can experience the feeling of walking through a cave made of ice. With the opening of a character and snow-themed theme park in southern Vietnam, where snow is difficult to see due to hot weather all year round, it is expected that families will flock to the area.
Ice Jungle opened by Daewoo Engineering & Construction in Phu Quoc. At night, you can experience media art that resembles a snow and ice cave in the hot weather of Phu Quoc. /Daewoo Engineering & Construction
Among Koreans, Phu Quoc is also called ‘Vietnam’s Jeju Island.’ Considering that Koreans went on honeymoon to Jeju Island in the past, it seems like they have a similar status. According to Jeju Island and the Jeju Island Tourism Association, among the tourists who visited Jeju last year (13,343,849 people), the number of domestic tourists was 12,636,834, down 8.2% from the previous year (2022). As overseas travel was blocked during the COVID-19 period, the number of domestic tourists visiting Jeju Island increased, but controversy arose over meat restaurants asking people to order for three people even if two people go, restaurants charging exorbitantly high prices, and rip-offs against tourists. Last year, when overseas visits became possible due to the pandemic and the cost of tourism in Japan became cheaper due to the low yen, the number of domestic tourists visiting Jeju Island decreased as more people said, “I will go abroad instead of Jeju Island.”
It is a bit bittersweet that Phu Quoc and Jeju Island are similar in that the number of domestic tourists is decreasing. It is said that it is natural for prices to rise as the number of tourists increases, but it goes without saying that proper price management is necessary for a tourist destination to be loved for a long time. I hope that Phu Quoc Island and Jeju Island will remain as tourist destinations loved by domestic tourists for a long time.
2024-01-07 15:06:04
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