The situation in Ukraine is changing rapidly. It is unclear how long the airspace over Ukraine, Moldova, Belarus or Russia will be affected.
The Russian currency (RUB) is beginning to devalue due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, leading to a series of cancellations by Russian tourists seeking to visit Vietnam and severely impacting local travel agencies’ plans, VOV reported.
Bui Quoc Dai, deputy director of Anex Vietnam Travel and Trading Company Limited, told zingnews.vn that his company is waiting for updated news about tensions that have increased between Russia and Ukraine in recent days.
Russia and other Eastern European countries have been important markets for Vietnamese travel agents for years, and the eruption of armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine has directly impacted the company’s ability to accommodate international tourists in the near future. welcome, Dai noted.
Currently, the Russian ruble is down about 3.5% to RUB 84.1 per US dollar, its lowest level since 2016, giving Russian citizens who want to travel an immediate pinch of feeling. The depreciation of the Russian currency has prompted Russian vacationers to pay increasingly higher travel costs when going abroad, leading to some cancellations of trips to Vietnam, he stressed.
Pegas Misr Vietnam Travel Company Limited said it is developing plans to bring foreign tourists to Vietnam after the government decided to reopen all borders to international tourism from March 13. Rising tensions between Russia and Ukraine cast a shadow over the plans, however, and Pegas Misr was unsure when it might bring international tourists to Vietnam.
Likewise, some tour companies admitted that the ongoing tensions have affected their plans to welcome not only Russian tourists, but also international tourists from other markets.
Surveys show that tourists in some markets were hesitant to book tours at this time, with many only considering vacationing after the conflict was over.
Behind the Chinese and Korean markets, the Russian market in particular and Eastern Europe in general are among the main markets supplying tourists to Nha Trang, Phu Quoc, Phan Thiet and Da Nang.
In 2019, Khanh Hoa Province welcomed 463,000 Russian visitors, accounting for more than 70% of the total number of Russian visitors to Vietnam.
When the country started a trial of a scheme to receive tourists with vaccine passports from mid-November 2021, Khanh Hoa welcomed about 5,000 Russian tourists, accounting for 80% of the total number of foreign visitors to the place, according to VOV.
