Videos: Travel Massive Saigon

Last month we packed our video camera and took a short flight from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City and visited Travel Massive Saigon’s July meet up.

Watch below for our 3 part series on the travel scene in Saigon, featuring Emily Nguyen from Google, Alberto Moreno and Martin Seij from baolau.vn, Dave Lemke & Fred Wissink from travelpluspictures.com, Simon Christy from alehap.vn, and Thu Nguyen from christinassaigon.com. Thanks to Saigon Intercontinental for hosting us!

Travel Massive Saigon Episode 1

Episode 1 – Emily Nguyen, Google’s New Business Manager for Vietnam shared with our members insights into how the travel discovery and booking experience is shifting online, and highlighted a number of trends Google is observing in the Vietnam market for travel search.

We also met with two emerging online travel companies that are based in Saigon. Alberto Moreno and Martin Seij are the co-founders of multi-modal travel search engine baolau.vn, which allows visitors to search and book travel across Vietnam using rail, bus and air. Afterwards we met Dave Lemke & Fred Wissink, co-founders of travelpluspictures.com  which is a photography service that follows travelers for their entire trip or just a part of it, capturing the important moments of their adventure.

Saigon Travel Massive Episode 2

Episode 2 – We also sat down with Simon Christy, the founder of Vietnam’s largest Online Travel Agency, alehap.vn.

Simon has been living in Saigon for 5 years, and started Alehap when he saw an opportunity to tap into an emerging trend of younger, more adventurous, online consumers in Vietnam looking to book their travel.

Now four years old, Alehap has over 350,000 members and the the business has built an impressive presence in distribution through social channels.

We asked Simon a few questions about why he built Alehap, what the challenges are for building a travel business in Vietnam, and how Vietnamese consumers book travel differently compared with other countries.

Note from Ian: So what’s driving the growth of both inbound and outbound travel in Vietnam? One reason might be the enourmous growth of low cost carriers (LCC’s) such as Nok Air and Air Asia flying into the region. According to Rani Francois-Marie Saad who heads up Abacus Ventures in Singapore, there are now 11 low cost carriers flying from/to Vietnam compared to zero 10 years ago. The low cost carrier (LCC) share has grown to 35% of Vietnamese domestic and 16% of international seats in July 2014 (chart). Thanks Rani for the tips!

Saigon Travel Massive Episode 3

Episode 3 – In our final episode we meet Thu Nguyen, who grew up in Boston and has returned to his roots in Vietnam to build a guest house using airbnb.com.

We ask Thu about why he decided to return to Vietnam to build a business, why he’s chose AirBnB and the sharing economy for his distribution channel, and what it’s like to motorcycle through Vietnam.

You can visit Thu’s guest house website at www.christinassaigon.com or visit their Facebook page at facebook.com/christinassaigon.

How to Join Saigon Travel Massive

Thanks for watching and please join us on #travelmassive and see where we’re next at travelmassive.com. You can also join the Saigon Travel Massive Chapter at travelmassive.com/chapters/saigon

Ian is the Founder and Global Community Leader for Travel Massive, the biggest online travel industry meet up around the world. He is currently based in https://travelmassive.com/chapters/saigonSydney and Bangkok. Connect with him on Twitter or join the community on Facebook.