Saigontourist Travel Service Company catered to 480,000 visitors in 2013, rising nearly 10% from the previous year, said Saigontourist general director Vo Anh Tai at a customer gratitude party at the Sheraton Saigon Hotel & Towers on Wednesday. Despite the 10% surge in the number of visitors, Saigontourists last year saw its revenue jumping 29% year-on-year while its return on equity (ROE) amounted to over 120% given the robust growth in the number of high-class tour buyers.
According to Tai, 2013 marked the best performance of Saigontourist in the firm’s business history. Saigontourist obtained total revenue of more than VND2.7 trillion from the travel segment, growing 29% year-on-year, with domestic, inbound and outbound services sales all posting strong growth despite the economic distress in 2013.
The strong growth in sales of high-class tourism products and costly tours to long-haul destinations including MICE tours (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) has made a great contribution to the firm’s staggering revenue increase.
“Many groups of customers had taken tours to explore business opportunities in the Middle East, Southern and Northern America with total expenses of VND80 million to more than VND100 million a person. Accounting for up to 19% of the total number of long-haul tour buyers, these customers contributed to raising our revenue considerably,” said Doan Thi Thanh Tra, marketing and public relations manager of the leading travel firm.
Besides, expanding the market to many localities instead of only focusing on big cities like Hanoi, HCMC and Danang has also helped Saigontourist attract more individual clients with high incomes along with other economic tour buyers in these areas, Tra added.
Saigontourist last year opened and upgraded a series of its branches and offices nationwide in Can Tho, Danang, Hanoi, Tien Giang and Nha Trang among others.
To celebrate the year-end and lunar New Year holidays, restaurants and hotels offered and are still offering numerous attractive gastronomic programs but the number of clients booking large-scale parties has diminished.
However, in high-profile and luxury hotels, food programs with entertainment shows priced at a few million dong still lured a lot of customers to countdown to 2014.
On New Year’s Eve, most of the swanky hotels in downtown HCMC, especially the ones where visitors could admire the fireworks display, were full to the brim.
The five-star Rex Hotel had a record number of guests, up to 1,000 diners, enjoying food, admiring entertainment shows and the fireworks display with tickets priced at nearly VND3 million per person.
Other hotels revealed they pocketed more than VND1 billion on dining services on the last day of 2013 and are now preparing fascinating programs for Tet.
Year-end season is the most popular time of the year for dining services of hotels and restaurants, so many of them had to map out programs two months in advance.
Guests who splashed out on entertainment and accompanied food programs costing millions of dong per ticket were foreigners and locals alike.
“The proceeds from the dining service on New Year’s Eve was 60% of the total revenue. From now until Tet, we are going to get busier serving guests interesting meals for weddings and Lunar New Year celebrations,” said Nguyen Anh Vu, general director of the five-star Majestic Hotel.
Currently, Binh Quoi I and II and Saigon Ship Restaurant are welcoming orders on a daily
basis but the volume of diners has fallen 30% and restaurants don’t have many large parties.
“The reduction is in both the volume of guests and value of the parties. We try to offer more
promotions to attract more families and passers-by but have not gained much attention,” said Chiem Thanh Long, director of Binh Quoi Tourist Village.
No comments:
Post a Comment