Most travel firms have sent tourists out of Da Nang, and have postponed tours and offered other destinations for travelers. Many people have cancelled travel plans. A series of conferences planned to take place at hotels and resorts have been cancelled.
Travelers have cancelled tours to Da Nang
All this has been done with a hurry in the last few days, after the new Covid-19 cases in the community were discovered.
“At the meeting early last week, we just discussed methods to recruit enough tour guides. But the plans have failed,” a businessman in the tourism industry told the local press.
For the businessman and other travel firms, the summer tourism season ended after the announcement about the new cases in Da Nang.
Travelers have cancelled tours not only to Da Nang, but also to other destinations.
“There are only a few more groups of tourists to serve, while the summer will end in a couple of weeks,” he said. “No one could imagine that the situation would turn worse after we saw the number of travelers increasing very rapidly recently.”
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| Most travel firms have sent tourists out of Da Nang, and have postponed tours and offered other destinations for travelers. Many people have cancelled travel plans. |
During the last half of the year of struggling with Covid-19, the travel firm had to lay off 30 percent of its staff.
Only a few workers of the other 70 percent of staff still go to the office regularly and receive minimum wages, while the remaining have been taking unpaid leave and waiting for the comeback.
“Some tour guides had just come back for a month. And nox they have nothing to do,” he said.
Other travel firms confirmed that most travellers have canceled tours.
“The situation had not been too bad until Monday as many travelers did not cancel tours, but chose other destinations. However, since July 29, more cancellations have occurred,” a senior executive of a travel firm said.
Tu Quy Thanh, director of Travel ink, said only 20 percent of clients agreed to choose other tours, while the other 80 percent cancelled tours.
VNAT last week said said that 100 percent of travelers had cancelled tours to the destinations, where new cases were found, and 30-40 percent cancelled tours to destinations without COVID-19..
“We can’t do anything except hope that the epidemic is contained soon,” said Thanh of Travelink.
“If the outbreak can be controlled in the next 30 days, we will still have opportunities,” he said, adding that the provision fund and the money accumulated over many years is getting exhausted.
Thanh Lich
