Indian Clients in Vietnam: The Questions They Ask, Answered

Admin October 20, 2026For Travel Agents

Your client will ring you late and ask whether her mother will find anything to eat in Vietnam, and you have to answer without hedging. This page collects the questions Indian clients ask before they commit – food, visa, safety, weather, cost and who is answerable once the group lands – with a source or a read date attached to every figure, so you can pass the answer on and defend it. We are Xtravel, the India desk of a Vietnamese tour operator, run from Hanoi.

Two things about us first, because they change how you read the rest.

We have run three Indian MICE and wedding groups in Vietnam – in Da Nang, Phu Quoc and Sapa. Three. Everything below is either a checkable fact or a description of how we work. None of it is dressed up as a decade of pattern.

We do not sell direct to your client. If a guest of yours contacts us, we refer them back to you. Several Indian agents send us clients.

“Will my family find food they can eat?”

The real question is whether an elderly parent will go hungry for the whole trip.

What to say: “Vegetarian food is widely available in Vietnam, but for a group we still book it with a named kitchen. Jain is a different matter – it is a kitchen arrangement rather than a menu request, and it has to be booked in advance with a kitchen that has agreed to it in writing. Xtravel works with partner kitchens that cook pure Jain in Hanoi, Da Nang and Phu Quoc, North Indian and South Indian both. You will have the written confirmation seven days before departure.”

Two limits are better stated now than discovered on the ground:

• Ho Chi Minh City. We do not have a partner Jain kitchen there. Say so.
• Sapa. There is no Jain kitchen on site in Sapa. Food on that leg has to be planned around that fact.

What makes a food answer credible is the process behind it, so show the process.

One point to raise at the itinerary stage: many Jain guests do not eat after sunset – ratri bhojan tyag. Vietnamese winter sunsets are early, so dinner has to move forward, and moving dinner moves the afternoon programme, the coach call and the venue’s own staffing. Raise it while the itinerary is still on paper.

Halal is a separate question, and our Jain kitchen arrangement does not answer it. Send the dates and the group, and you will get a written statement of what we can confirm and what we cannot.

“How difficult is the Vietnam visa?”

What to say: “Vietnam runs an online e-visa for Indian passport holders, applied for directly on the government portal. It is not an on-arrival scramble.”

Tell a group client to collect passport scans in the first week of planning, not the last. On a large group the visa file is straightforward administration; the delay comes from the handful who send a blurred passport photo the day before the deadline. Never tell a client an approval is certain. It is a government decision, and no operator on either side of the border controls it.

Where Vietnam loses

Answer this before your client finds it somewhere else.

Thailand is visa-free for Indian passport holders for 60 days. Vietnam is not. That is a real point against Vietnam. Pretending otherwise costs you the client’s trust on everything else you have said.

On the other side of the scale, put facts. Vietnam received roughly 750,000 Indian arrivals in 2025, up about 50 per cent, and more than 242,000 in the first quarter of 2026, up 169 per cent (read 24 August 2026). Direct flights from India run about four to five hours, operated by Air India, Vietnam Airlines, VietJet and IndiGo, from Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad (read 24 August 2026). Not every airline flies every city pair, so route and frequency have to be confirmed for your dates. The market is moving towards Vietnam while the visa requirement stands. The e-visa is an online form and a 25 USD fee; your client can weigh that against a destination the group has not already done.

Water, hospitals and daily practicalities

Start by telling the client they are not a pioneer. Da Nang recorded around 101 MICE groups and about 28,428 delegates in the first five months of 2026, and more than 50 destination weddings across 2025 (read 24 August 2026). In the first four months of 2026, Quang Ninh hosted six weddings for ultra-wealthy Indian families. Separately, in Phu Quoc, one Indian family took over an entire resort for seven days for more than 1,000 guests (read 24 August 2026). Your client’s group will not be the first Indian group anyone here has handled.

Now the blunt answers, which are the ones that earn trust.

“Can we drink the tap water?” No. Do not drink the tap water in Vietnam. Bottled water is widely available and cheap, and on a group programme it belongs on the coach as a budgeted line item.

“Are there hospitals?” There are hospitals working to international standards in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang, and pharmacies are common. For a remote leg, ask us to confirm the nearest facility before you commit the date, and check the group’s travel insurance.

“Is it safe?” On crime and personal security we have no figure we are willing to stand behind, so we will not give you one, and we will not tell you Vietnam is perfectly safe. Send us the specific worry – a late transfer, a woman travelling on ahead of the group, a venue in an unfamiliar district – and you get an answer about that arrangement, with the checks we would run on it.

“Will there be a bidet spray in the bathroom?” Often yes. It is common in Vietnam, including in hotels, but it is not everywhere and it has to be checked hotel by hotel. Ask us and we will check the specific property.

“Can we pray?” Vietnam has Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and Catholic communities with their own places of worship, and the large cities have Hindu temples and mosques. If a client needs a specific arrangement on a specific date, send us the date and we will confirm the specific place.

“Anything to know about behaviour?” Vietnamese temples expect shoulders and knees covered. Put that in the pre-departure note.

Worth adding to any pre-departure note: SIM cards and mobile data are cheap in Vietnam with good coverage, including outside the cities. Cards work in larger hotels and restaurants; markets and small counters want cash; ATMs are easy to find.

“When should we go?”

What to say: “In Vietnam the date decision is largely a weather decision for the central coast and a daylight decision for winter programmes.”

Central Vietnam has a storm season roughly from September to November. If a client wants a beach ceremony on the central coast in October, do not simply say yes. Say what the risk is, and put a covered alternative into the first version of the programme, priced.

The second factor is daylight. Winter sunsets are early in Vietnam, which affects sunset ceremonies, photography windows and any group observing ratri bhojan tyag.

“What is this going to cost?”

What to say: “We quote a programme, not a rate card. What we can give you today is the market cost of the pieces, with the date we checked them.”

Fares and fees move; quote the read date every time you pass a number on. We do not publish package prices, and we do not put a number on a Jain catering line before a kitchen has answered in writing.

One planning note for corporate work: Indian MICE budgets are commonly fixed between January and March for a financial year starting 1 April. If your client’s incentive trip is for the following winter, the conversation that decides it happens in Q1.

“Who is actually looking after us in Vietnam?”

What to say: “An Indian director based in Hanoi, and a coordinator physically present at the points that go wrong.”

Xtravel is headed by Sreehari Sajeev – Harry – an Indian who lives and works in Hanoi, and he takes the call himself. An Indian has always held the director’s chair at Xtravel. That is policy, not staffing. Our first India Director came from outside the travel industry and was trained for six months by our founder before taking the role.

What we do not do

• No partner Jain kitchen in Ho Chi Minh City.
• No Jain kitchen on site in Sapa.
• We do not sell India-Vietnam air tickets.
• We do not design event concepts or decor. We run the programme on the ground; the creative belongs to you or to your designer.
• We do not confirm anything a kitchen or supplier has not confirmed to us in writing.
• We do not publish photographs of clients’ events, including the good ones. That costs us a portfolio.
• We do not sell direct to your client.

Some questions cannot be answered honestly on a web page, and we would rather leave them open than guess: minimum and maximum group size, how far ahead you need to book, which transfers and coordination sit inside a programme, payment and cancellation terms, and halal catering. Send the group size and the dates, and you will get either a specific written answer or a plain statement that we do not know yet.

About Xtravel

Xtravel is the India desk of VINATAT Group, a Vietnamese travel company operating since 2011, holding an international tour operator licence, with offices in northern, central and southern Vietnam. Xtravel is headed by Sreehari Sajeev – “Harry” – our Director, an Indian who lives and works in Hanoi. When you call us, you speak to him, not to a translator. We plan and run programmes on the ground here. We are not a reseller.

Travel like a local.

Talk to the person who will actually be there.

Sreehari Sajeev (Harry) – Director, Xtravel
+84 92 4567 333 · Hoang@vinatat.vn
Xtravel – VINATAT Group · 212 Nguyen Trai, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi
International tour operator licence 01-1082/2018/TCDL-GP LHQT

We don’t publish our clients’ events. Yours won’t be either.