Michael Piro, COO, Indochina Capital and CEO, Wink Hotels

HÀ NỘI — About 68 per cent of surveyed people in Việt Nam stated their intent to resume travelling by the last quarter of 2020, showing their eagerness to travel and confidence in the Government’s handling of the pandemic.

The traveller survey was conducted in the midst of Việt Nam’s second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic by Indochina Capital and Wink Hotels. The survey reveals the travel habits and preferences of travellers in Việt Nam, including health and safety-related factors that would influence their hotel accommodation decisions.  

Conducted in mid-August, the survey totalled 700 participants from first-tier cities, of which 90 per cent were Vietnamese and 10 per cent were foreigners. Insights gained from the responses were drawn to aid hoteliers and hospitality players grasp the new domestic tourism landscape, as the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism pushes forward domestic tourism stimulus programmes and travel and hospitality companies gear up to launch new campaigns.

The traveller survey conducted by Indochina Capital and Wink Hotels

A silver lining amid the COVID-19 pandemic is the fact that Việt Nam travellers are as keen to travel as they were pre-pandemic – domestic travel grew from 57 million to 90 million from 2015 to 2019 and previous surveys have shown that Vietnamese customers are increasingly willing to spend more on holidays. Indochina Capital and Wink Hotels’ latest survey reinforces this trend as 99.7 per cent of respondents confirmed they travel at least once a year domestically for leisure purposes, while 83.7 per cent stated they travel at least twice a year.

“Tourism and real estate are bound to be major building blocks for economic recovery. As Việt Nam travellers are already planning their next domestic trip, the economy is going to rely on consumers to return to their pre-COVID-19 spending levels, which should be enabled by travel. With borders slowly and carefully being reopened, the domestic market will be the main driver for economic recovery. The impressive handling of COVID-19 has pushed Việt Nam’s position forward as a promising investment destination, and with this survey, we want to highlight elements which will help hoteliers and tourism-focused real estate owners enhance their financial returns,” said Michael Piro, COO, Indochina Capital and CEO, Wink Hotels.

The survey highlights the dominance of online channels for brand touchpoint and accommodation booking as 64 per cent of travellers will use online travel agencies to conduct their bookings and 91 per cent rely on digital advertisements for their hotel browsing.

The survey also underlines Việt Nam travellers’ preference for short leisure trips of less than four nights, with the majority of business trips lasting no more than two nights. On pricing strategies, just a quarter of respondents were willing to spend above VNĐ2 million per night on personal trips, and they spend even less on business trips.

Other information in the survey includes who Việt Nam tourists travel with group travel, family travel or solo travellers, their preferred mode of transport, attractive features for a hotel/accommodation advertisement, decision-making factors when choosing accommodation and assessing the quality of a hotel stay.

The survey can be downloaded at Indochina Capital’s website indochinacapital.com.