Local Local travel booms despite tough times booms despite tough times

according to industry insiders.

Tour companies reported that the number of tourists booked for foreigntours has increased significantly.

Saigontourist said that up to on August 19, the number of tourists planning, to travel on National Day September 2, had risen 14 percent overthe same period last year.

Vietravel also reported a surge of 20 percent, while Fiditour'sfigureshowed a 22 percent rise, with roughly 3,000 travellers.

Industry insiders are calling it a seasonal increase, with 30-50 percent sales being offered in regional tourism markets such as Thailand , HongKong , Malaysia and Singapore .

Tour agents said that customers often choose three to five day tours, especially to Thailand . Saigontourist said three had so far been more than 320 tourists booked to travel to Thailand from August 28 to 30, up67 percent year-on-year. Vietravel reported roughly a 30 percent increase.

Despite accounting for an insignificant number of companies' foreign tours, the growth rates of long distant and costly tours to the US , the Repubic of Korea, Japan , the EU and Australia have reportedlyincreased sharply as well.

Fiditour said that event though travellers booking tours worth more than 1,000 USD only represent 17 percent of the company's total foreign tours,the growth rate for such tours is still in double digits.

The number of tourists booking costly tours through Vietravel,Saigontourist and Hoan My was also up.

To attract tourist, travel companies said they have tried their best tocut costs.

Head of Saigontourist's domestic tour division Quoc Bao said his company had bought nearly 500 plane tickets to save costs for customers beforeairlines applied additional fuel fees from August 15.

However, industry insiders said that prices of domestic tours would still increase roughly 5-7 percent over the same period last year due to soaring transportation costs.-