National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines plans to open a direct route from Hanoi to Sydney, Australia, by next April.
National flag carrier Vietnam Airlines plans to open a direct route from Hanoi to Sydney, Australia, by next April.
It will launch flights using its new aircraft, the Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner, from Ho Chi Minh City to both Sydney and Melbourne from December 5. A representative from Vietnam Airlines in Sydney said that the city is considered a key market, with flights having an annual average carriage frequency of 300,000 passengers. The percentage of filled seats was 84 per cent at the beginning of this year and the market is clearly divided into high and low seasons.
 |
| National flag carrier plans to open direct flights by April 2017 |
The first Ho Chi Minh City to Sydney flight was launched in 1996. Only three flights were operated each week, including one combined flight to Sydney and Melbourne. Then VNA increased frequency to five flights a week with two separate routes to the two cities.
Since 2011 it has offered daily flights to take advantage of trade and cultural exchanges and to meet travel demand.
The number of Australian tourists visiting Vietnam reached nearly 305,000 in 2015, ranking its eighth among the ten leading tourist markets of Vietnam, according to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT). In the first seven months of this year the number stood at 195,711, up 6.6 per cent year-on-year.
VNAT and the Embassy of Vietnam in Australia launched a program in Sydney on October 4 to promote Vietnam’s tourism in the host country.
Roadshows were held in Sydney and Melbourne, aimed at promoting Vietnam’s tourism potential and tourism products to the Australian public and to provide opportunities for Vietnamese tourism enterprises to seek cooperation with Australian travel agencies and research demand among Australian tourists.
VNAT is to launch tourism promotion programs in Melbourne and Brisbane, which will include an introduction to policies and new tourism products and services suitable for Australian market, B2B meetings between businesses of the two sides, and traditional music performances.
Under Vietnam’s tourism promotion strategy, VNAT named Australia and New Zealand among key markets, as tourists from the two countries often spend a lot of money and stay for long periods.
Australia, in particular, is expected to be a strongly growing market in 2017 and in the years to come as Vietnamese cultural, gastronomic, and ecological tourism is attracting many Australian visitors.
Source: Vietnam Economic Times
