Petty merchants in Ben Thanh Market were seen chatting in groups on March 19 in the morning. “Sales have been very slow, therefore, we have no other choice than chatting, though we still have to pay tax, electricity and water bills,” said Loan, the owner of kiosk No 918.

Sales down by 40-50%

Loan said that the demand in the first three months of the year has decreased by around 50%. There are some 80 product items available at her stall, specialising in fine handicraft articles, but only chopsticks are still selling well. “Chopsticks are purchased by foreign travellers as gifts for friends and relatives, and by domestic consumers for use,” Loan said.

She added that previously, customers always purchased high-quality chopsticks, VND25,000-30,000/pair, but nowadays, they prefer medium-class products, 10,000-15,000/pair.

The situations of jewellery, clothes, footwear stalls in the market prove to be more serious. Lan, the owner of Ha Loi Jewellery shop, which is located in an advantageous position of the market, said that as the main customers of the shop are travellers, sales have dropped by 50% due to the sharp decrease of number of travellers.

Not only the petty merchants in Ben Thanh Market, most of the shops specialising in selling souvenirs to foreign travellers in the central areas of HCM City like Nguyen Hue, Le Loi, Mac Thi Buoi, Le Thanh Ton and Dong Khoi also complain about want of customers.

Thien Xanh Tri, owner of Ky Nam Fine Arts Articles Shop, said that previously, he got the profit of VND20-25mil a month, while he now can earn VND3-5mil only. The main clients of the shop, travellers from Asia (Japan and South Korea) who purchase leather handbags, belts and wallets have dwindled in number. “I foresaw slower sales, since it is now not the high season. But I could not have imagined that sales would drop by 60%,” he said.

Fewer tourists

According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), in the first two months of the year, 688,753 foreign tourists arrived in Vietnam, 10.3% less than came during the same period of last year.

Nguyen Quoc Ky, General Director of Vietravel, said his turnover from foreign travellers has decreased by 40%.

In order to lure more travellers to Vietnam, VNAT has launched the promotion programme ‘Impressive Vietnam’. However, travel firms say that the programme has not helped much.

“Travellers contacted us right after ‘Impressive Vietnam’ was launched on websites. However, they did not receive the tour fee reductions as promised,” the staff of a travel firm said. Nguyen Thi Khanh, Head of the Tourism Division under the HCM City Culture, Sports and Tourism Department, said that involved parties have not been able to reach an agreement on tour fee reduction levels applied to different markets. Travel firms still have to directly negotiate hotel room and service fee reductions with hotels.

As such, while the involved parties of the tourism industry are still discussing tour fee reductions, the number of tourists coming to Vietnam continues decreasing, resulting in the withering of the tourism-service retail industry.