Vietnam is a country that attracts tourists with its diverse culture and landscapes.
According to businessfrance.fr, "during the period 2015-2019, the number of visits of foreign tourists to Vietnam was multiplied by 2.3, from 7.9 M to about 18.5 M visits, an average annual growth rate of 22%".
The country also attracts professionals and companies. This is due to its development over the last thirty years. Vietnam is considered the new gateway for Asian trade.
According to a recent Standard Chartered Bank survey (July 2021), around 60% of European companies working in ASEAN say that Vietnam offers the best opportunities for expansion in the region.
Despite the COVID era, Vietnam remains an attractive country due to its strategic location.
To better understand the travel market, we decided to conduct an interview with a travel management company: Blue Sky Travel Vietnam.
It is a company established since 2002. It specialized from its premises in the accompaniment of professionals and individuals for their trip to Vietnam (booking of plane ticket, proposal of organized trip, hotel reservation etc.). The booking of tickets for companies remains, however, at the centre of the company’s professional activity. The company also offers the possibility of conducting seminars and tours for professionals. It is, in fact, geared towards the organization of business travel, especially for companies making business trips. Most international companies use agencies of this type to organize field trips.
It is therefore with pleasure that I meet today, Mr.Nguyen Sy, the business development of the company for this interview organized around the following question: how the company has faced and has been developed following the COVID crisis?
Hello Mr. Nguyen Sy, I am delighted to see you again today for this interview.
First of all, could you quickly introduce yourself and your company structure please?
Hello!
My role as a business manager is to oversee the employees and operations of the company’s different teams. I ensure that they remain productive, efficient and organized at all times by implementing operational strategies. I also do performance reviews by overseeing all daily activities as well.
We have different teams to manage that I will now introduce you to:
'AMEX GBT' team: it handles all international business travel. Since 2007, the company is the Vietnamese partner of American Express Global Business Travel. Being part of this organization has allowed Blue Sky to provide high-end travel services for these business customers.
Outbound team: they organize meetings and events for example.
"Inbound" team: it takes care of the marketing of "loyalty" of professional customers by sending them personalized services.
Booking team: it’s really important. It is, in fact, the one that deals with airline tickets as well as all aspects of reservations.
In my company, we also do visas for business trips or for tourist trips, for example.
Thank you for that quick introduction.
We know that Blue Sky Travel Vietnam has successfully weathered the COVID pandemic, but how? I mean, COVID has driven down a lot of businesses, even more in the tourism business....
According to the report of the Office of General Statistics of Vietnam (OSG) on the socio-economic situation in September 2021: about 10,000 companies per month are withdrawing from the market in the country. I would say that we have indeed been through a difficult period because of the pandemic, as have other travel companies in Vietnam.
However, the following processes are in place to address this crisis:
First, we focused on providing travel management services to business clients. This generated about 70% of our company’s total revenues. As a result, the focus on work activity during the COVID-19 period has allowed us to cope. This choice of specialization was necessary because we could not focus on leisure or personal travel! Our company is quite different from others in Vietnam because most of them remained focused on one type of travel: leisure.
Second, we have been able to adapt to the situation by offering flexible travel solutions to meet the needs and demands of our customers. Optimizing travel costs is one of our priorities. We took care of everything and during this period, it was a real plus to give customers the opportunity to travel more easily. In addition, we had to optimize the cost of all travel. Thanks to our customers and their trust, we were able to survive and become even stronger than before this period.
Now that you have explained to us how the company has dealt with COVID, I think it would be interesting to understand how your company has changed during this period and how it has developed since the re-opening of the borders.
Indeed, we know that since March 2022, Vietnam’s borders have reopened for tourists who can now come and spend their holidays there.
The period was seized as a "development opportunity" for us when many companies could not manage the lack of renewal of activities (due to the closure of borders for tourists).
I think the most important thing to remember is that the company became stronger after that period because we were able to adapt to the situation.
Finally, I think that the travel management market for professionals has enormous potential, due to the attractiveness of Vietnam. As you may have mentioned in your introduction, Vietnam has been attractive to businesses for the last 30 years because it offers the best opportunities for expansion in Asia.
In addition, I think that since March 2022 and the re-opening of borders, the renewal of tourism activity has led to a new dynamic in the country and new possibilities for the establishment of innovative businesses.
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Ok ! thank you for your answer. .
Finally, I would like to talk with you about your feelings about the company because as said earlier, we know that you joined it about 6 months ago.
Yes indeed, my first feeling when I join the company what to be excited, because it was after-COVID and I knew that people would like to travel again. I felt really excited because I saw what we could do more in business, we could open the company to more activities, extended our business and explored any type of market!
Thank you for this very constructive interview and for the time you took for it.
To find other informations about Blue Sky Travel Agency Vietnam, please check out this link: https://blueskytravelvietnam.com/