Covid-19 puts brakes on Vietnam’s once-thriving motorbike tourism industry

Once offering up to 100 bike tours a year, one Vietnamese operator has only hosted four tours since the start of the pandemic

Vietnam saw just 157,300 foreign visitors in 2021, compared to 18 million international travellers in 2019

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Motorbike operators in Vietnam have lost staff during the pandemic.

Photo: Indochina Motorbike Tours

Published: 2:00pm, 20 Feb 2022

Before the pandemic hit, Anh Wu’s Hanoi-based motorbike tour business was booming, taking up to 100 groups of intrepid travellers on guided tours across Vietnam each year.

Some of Offroad Vietnam’s customers were solo adventurers, others were groups of 20 people from all around the world – there to be guided around the Southeast Asian country’s rolling hills and rich biological diversity.

Then in March 2020, the pandemic took hold and things began to change quickly as tourists started to scramble to return to their home countries as Covid-19 spread.

Motorbike tours were popular in Vietnam before the pandemic hit. Photo: Offroad Vietnam

Since then the business has done just four guided tours. Anh’s company is part of a once-thriving industry that has been hit hard by travel restrictions. “Before April 2020, tourism was booming in Vietnam with many customers wishing to discover Vietnam on two wheels,” said co-owner Anh.

In pre-pandemic 2019, Vietnam’s tourism industry generated $US32.8billion in revenue, according to the Ministry for Culture, Sports and Tourism. This equated to 9.2 per cent of Vietnam’s gross domestic product (GDP), generating around 2.5 million jobs in the sector.

The country saw 18 million international visitors that year but in 2020 this dropped to 3.8 million. A massive 97 per cent of these visitors arrived in the first quarter – an indicative sign of the pandemic’s swift and sudden impact on global travel.

Covid-19 puts brakes on Vietnam’s once-thriving motorbike tourism industry

Once offering up to 100 bike tours a year, one Vietnamese operator has only hosted four tours since the start of the pandemic Vietnam saw just 157,300 foreign visitors in 2021, compared to 18 million international travellers in 2019

Once offering up to 100 bike tours a year, one Vietnamese operator has only hosted four tours since the start of the pandemic

Vietnam saw just 157,300 foreign visitors in 2021, compared to 18 million international travellers in 2019