Land-Only or All-Inclusive: India-Vietnam Group Files

Admin October 19, 2026Costs & Comparisons

A corporate client asks for 120 delegates in Da Nang in February, wants one invoice, and expects a price this week — and you have to work out how much of that file your own office keeps. This article sets out how the file splits: who carries which line, where the margin sits, and what to do with that exact case. We are Xtravel, the India desk of VINATAT Group; VINATAT has operated in Vietnam since 2011, Xtravel is its recently formed India desk, and we do not sell India-Vietnam air tickets.

The market you are quoting into

Volume is arriving faster than ground capacity is being built here. That is the argument for contracting land services early and separately, whichever commercial model you choose.

The two models, briefly

Land-only means we quote everything after the aircraft door opens in Vietnam: airport handling, transfers, hotels, meals, kitchen arrangements, venues, permits, coaches, guides, on-site staff. Air is yours. All-inclusive means you buy or block the international sector, wrap our land cost inside your own price, and issue one invoice.

The difference is not service level. Both models can run the same programme with the same coaches, the same kitchen team and the same ground team waiting at the arrivals gate. The difference is where the money sits, where the risk sits, and who answers the phone when a connecting flight is delayed.

Why we do not sell your air tickets

This is a deliberate decision, not a gap in our licence.

Air is usually where an agent’s own office earns on an India-Vietnam file — that is how agents describe it to us. Published one-way fares on the direct sectors started from roughly 12,000-14,500 INR when we checked in August 2026, on Air India, Vietnam Airlines, VietJet and IndiGo, out of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad, with flying times of four to five hours. Group air on those sectors is negotiated in India, by people with India consolidator relationships. We do not have those relationships and we are not trying to build them.

So air is not in our quote. Your ticketing revenue stays in your office, and no line in our proposal competes with your own air contract.

There is a second reason, less commercial. When we do not hold the air, we are not the party deciding whether to move a group, and we are not the party defending a fare rule to your client. We plan and run what happens on the ground here, and we say so plainly rather than presenting ourselves as an end-to-end supplier. If your office does not hold air relationships, buy the sector through an India consolidator and keep us on land-only. That is how we suggest the work is divided.

Who carries which line

Four lines are identical in both models, so treat them as settled: the air contract and every schedule risk attached to it are yours; cancellation and attrition on ground services follow our contracted terms in both cases; the client invoice and the client relationship are yours. Nothing about all-inclusive moves risk onto us. It concentrates more of it in your office in exchange for a cleaner sale and one larger mark-up.

These are the lines that genuinely differ:

We do not quote package prices in public. Market costs with a source, yes. Our numbers, only against a brief.

Building the margin, with your own figures

You do not need our prices to model the file. Take the published fare range above as your air input, put our land cost in as a single unknown, and fill in your own two percentages:

• Air: roughly 12,000-14,500 INR one-way published (August 2026); your negotiated group fare and your ticketing revenue stay in your office.
• Land: quoted per event against a brief, invoiced in USD.
• Land-only: your mark-up sits on the land cost alone — the client sees your ground line and can shop it.
• All-inclusive: your mark-up sits on air plus land as one number — larger in absolute terms, and not comparable line by line, but you are carrying the fare exposure on top of the currency exposure.

Run both on the same file before you decide. The gap between them is usually smaller than it looks, and the deciding factor is who the buyer is.

When to sell whole, when to split

One question decides most files: who holds the air?

If the client already has tickets, an existing corporate air contract, or their own agency relationship, sell land-only. Trying to wrap a fare you did not buy well is how a competitive ground price gets lost. If the air is not yet bought and the buyer is a family or a first-time corporate organiser, sell it whole — a family paying for a 200-guest wedding does not want to reconcile three invoices in two currencies.

Three secondary checks:

Dates. Soft dates favour splitting. Our ground contract terms are ours to write, so re-dating land is more flexible than moving group air. If the client is still choosing between September and February for central Vietnam, hold the land separately.

Catering scrutiny. Some families ask for the kitchen arrangement itemised and will not accept it inside a per-head figure. That points to land-only.

Annual corporate volume. Indian corporate MICE budgets are typically signed off between January and March for the financial year starting 1 April. A single all-in figure clears one approval; a schedule of components in two currencies invites three.

Where Vietnam loses — know this before you quote

We would rather you hear this from us than from your client.

Visa. Vietnam requires an e-visa for Indian passport holders: 25 USD single entry, 50 USD multiple entry, valid up to 90 days, processed in three to five working days at evisa.gov.vn (read August 2026). Thailand has been visa-free for Indian nationals for 60 days through 2026. For a 400-guest wedding that is 400 applications and 400 chances of a mistyped passport number. No amount of ground service removes it.

Wedding infrastructure. Bali is further ahead than Vietnam on Indian wedding supply — resident Indian cooking teams, mandap construction, dhol players and priests are available locally. In Vietnam several of those elements are still solved by bringing people in or building capability against a specific event. That costs planning time even where it does not cost more money.

Weather. Central Vietnam’s storm season runs roughly September to November. If a client insists on a coastal central Vietnam wedding in October, say so early.

Published cost data. For three nights at a four or five-star resort, published per-head ranges sit at about 35,000-65,000 INR in Bali and 40,000-70,000 INR in Phuket (read August 2026), with Phuket running roughly 15-25% above Bali. For Vietnam we have not found a per-head figure published to a standard we would put in front of you, so we will not invent one.

Why buyers still choose Vietnam

Your director will ask why not a Bali DMC. The answer is four lines, all sourced.

Flying time is four to five hours direct from six Indian cities on four carriers. At whole-event level, published ranges for high-end Indian weddings are 40 lakh to 2 crore INR in Vietnam against 60 lakh to 3 crore INR in Bali; in Phuket or Hua Hin, 100 guests over three nights commonly falls between 70 lakh and 1.2 crore INR, with 150 guests at the premium end above 1.2 crore. Published ranges start lower in Vietnam — that is not a claim that we are cheap; we quote per event, because no two are the same. And the 90-day multiple-entry e-visa at 50 USD suits a planner making several site visits before the event.

What we hold, and what we don’t

We hold partner kitchens producing strict Jain food, and both North Indian and South Indian menus, in Hanoi, Da Nang and Phu Quoc. In Ho Chi Minh City we do not currently have a kitchen partner. In Sapa there is no Jain kitchen on site, so that requirement has to be solved by bringing capability up with the group, and it changes the cost. Venue kitchen usage fees are common and only become quantifiable once the venue is fixed; we pass them through at cost with the venue’s invoice attached.

We have run three Indian MICE and wedding groups in Vietnam — in Da Nang, Phu Quoc and Sapa. Guest numbers and dates for those belong to the clients and we do not publish them. Several India-based agencies send us groups on a recurring basis.

We do not publish photographs of client events. Our VIP clients do not permit it, so we have no gallery and we are not going to build one from other people’s weddings.

Two questions agents ask before signing. First, night-one no-shows after a misconnect: rooms are contracted and charged under the hotel’s terms whether or not the guest arrives. We will put the request in, but we do not control the answer, and the air risk sits with you in both models. Second, bulk e-visa: we do not file applications on your clients’ behalf. We will review your passport-data sheet against the portal’s requirements before you file.

The 120-delegate file, decided

Back to Da Nang in February. Run the pivot question: if the corporate has its own air contract, this goes out land-only, with your mark-up on our ground cost and your ticketing revenue untouched. If the client is buying air through you, sell it whole — they asked for one invoice, and a February programme falls inside the financial year ending 31 March, so the budget is already approved and one number clears faster than four.

February sits outside the September-to-November storm window. Da Nang carried around 101 MICE groups and roughly 28,428 delegates in the first five months of 2026, so contract venue and rooms before you finalise the fare. And we hold a partner Jain kitchen in Da Nang, so that line can be itemised if the client wants to inspect it.

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.