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Vo Anh Tai (R), director of Saigontourist Travel Service Co., honors the company’s top nine big customers in 2009 at the Thank-You Night – Photo: Dao Loan (The Saigon Times Daily)

HCMC – The country’s leading tour operator Saigontourist Travel Service Co. has overcome a challenging year for the travel industry and seen growth in revenue and a stable profit, the company leader said on Wednesday.

The company has catered to 270,000 local and international tourists this year, down 40,000 year-on-year, but its revenue was equal to last year’s at VND950 billion while the company’s profit was unchanged.

“It’s a good result because we can maintain revenue in the challenging year of the financial crisis, epidemics, and lower tour prices,” Vo Anh Tai, director of Saigontourist, told the Daily on the occasion of the Thank-You Night in the five-star Rex Hotel in HCMC last night.

The fall in tourist number is mainly attributed to a decline in international cruise passengers, but the tour operator has better business result from the outbound and domestic sectors in 2009, he said.

“Outbound and domestic tourists have increased strongly this year. Many tourists have booked tours to long-haul destinations, prompting an increase in revenue per tourist,” Tai explained.

He said that the company had made use of all incentives offered by the Government to lower tour prices for tourists to encourage more travelers in tough times.

“Almost all domestic and outbound tours this year are cheaper by 10% to 35% while the service quality remains agreeable thanks to the methods,” he said.

Saigontourist Travel Service Co., a subsidiary of Saigontourist Holding Company, was among the top ten international travel companies in Vietnam in 2008, as selected by the Vietnam Tourism Association.

Dao Loan – The Saigon Times Daily

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