According to a survey done by the Vietnam Tourism Advisory Council (TAB) and the Private Economic Development Research Board with nearly 400 tourism and travel firms between April 13 and 17, 77 percent of tourism and travel firms estimated the loss.
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The survey aimed to update the business situation of the industry and understand the difficulties of firms to report to the Government and make recommendations to help them recover after the pandemic.
Among nearly 400 firms in the survey, 51 percent were tour operators, 15 percent hotels and 14 percent transport services. Ninety-two percent of the firms were small- and medium-sized enterprises with less than 100 employees.
The results also demonstrated that 71 percent of firms reported a revenue decrease of at least 70 percent compared to the first quarter of 2019.
Two-thirds of the firms had to cut their workforces in half while nearly 20 percent had to sack all their employees.
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Of the surveyed firms, about 10 percent had completely shut down their businesses.
When asked about the future, 82.7 percent of the firms thought their business activities might return to normal at the beginning of Q3.
TAB said that together with the firms’ own solutions, they also needed financial and policy support from the Government.
A representative of TAB said: “Currently, tourism firms have received support in tax, social insurance payment but they need more financial support policies in loans to deal with the difficulties.”
TAB also recommended tourism firms strongly restructure their businesses and markets after the pandemic so they could quickly return to stable development.
TAB said from the beginning of 2020, the tourism industry has been seriously damaged by the impact of the pandemic. The losses have been estimated at up to US$7 billion.
— VNS
