Tour guides quit motorbike taxi, shipper, wait for the market to explode

After a long time working as a delivery and security shipper, Mr. Pham Tien Huu (born in 1989, Hanoi) is happy to return to his main job as a tour guide.

According to Mr. Huu, after Vietnam tourism was fully opened, many travel agencies contacted him to deliver tours, the number of visitors increased sharply, helping tour guides like him to be as busy as before.

“After 7 years of working, tourism gives me a good income. Just because the epidemic has stopped work for so long, I have to do many other things to maintain my life. Now, when the market recovers, I give up all my side jobs to focus on being a tour guide.” Huu said happily.

Leading the delegation to visit Dien Bien province, taking advantage of the lunch break, tour guide Hoang Trong Phu (Nam Dinh hometown) said that from mid-March until now, he has always had a full schedule to lead guests on tours. Closed schedule until April 20.

Mr. Phu expressed his joy at being back at his favorite job. During the closure of tourism, Mr. Phu had to work for a beverage company. Although his income is still enough for personal expenses and to maintain his life, but after receiving the first tour orders, he didn’t think much of it and immediately quit selling to return to his profession.

“Not only me, but many other colleagues who previously had to sell online are now back to work”Mr. Phu said.

Working part-time during the week, going on a tour at the weekend

Although many employees have returned to work, but because the market has not fully recovered, the number of tour guides currently only meets about 40-50% of business needs. Most still suffer from the situation of leading the tour on the weekend, and there are no guests during the week, so they have to do many other things.

“During the break, we do real estate, shipper… There are also some people who have found a stable job so they don’t want to go back to tourism anymore, there are also people who don’t want to stick with the precarious job for a long time. this disease“, tour guide Pham Tien Huu shared.

In the state that he has not received many tour guides, Mr. Le Dinh Ban (28 years old, from Thanh Hoa) now has to do two things at the same time.

“The tour leading is only sporadic but not 100% as before. In my spare time, I have to take delivery. There were times when I intended to quit my job completely, but now that tourism has reopened, I still have hope and look forward to every day to be able to work as fully as before.” Mr. Ban said.

According to Mr. Ban, besides the positive signals when the market industry is recovering, there are still many difficulties that tour guides are facing. After a long period of closure due to COVID-19, facilities at many local tourist attractions are very inadequate, making it impossible for visitors to enjoy the best products and services. “Currently, many restaurants or resorts have not reopened as before. A few days ago, I took a group of guests to visit a tourist attraction in Cao Bang, only one restaurant was open, the food service was not as diverse as before, so our tour was also affected in terms of quality. , Mr. Ban recounted and added that his business had to cancel a lot of tours because the locality had not yet opened or the quality did not meet the demand.

Sharing with VTC News, a leader of a travel business in Hanoi said:Because the opening time is not long, many tourist attractions in the locality have not prepared in time to have the best services. Tour organizers like us have to work very hard to stay connected with local attractions and information to customers, as well as regularly update changes in prices or tour itineraries. All hope that the market will stabilize and explode in the near future so that the tourism industry will become more and more prosperous.”