Amica Travel: Greatest Success Is Trust of Customers
“Making its debut in the context of fierce competition on the Vietnamese tourism market, Amica Travel has still managed to achieve amazing successes, and the greatest success is gaining the trust of customers,” said Mr Ha Duc Manh, General Director of Amica Travel, at an exclusive interview granted to Vietnam Business Forum. Thu Ha reports.
Could you please introduce some information about Amica Travel, its products and services, as well as its achievements in the past time?
Amica Travel is a trademark of the Vietnam Amity Investment, Trade and Tourism Joint Stock Company (AMICA JSC) established in 2007. With nearly 100 employees and four operating offices in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Siem Reap and Luang Prabang, we design and organise tailor-made tours for international travellers visiting Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar.
After nearly 10 years of operation, we have served over 30,000 customers, mainly from French-speaking countries. We have created a tour system that connects destinations of interest and covers all forms of tourism ranging from adventure travel to leisure tourism.
Making its debut in the context of stiff competition, what difficulties did Amica Travel face?
In addition to certain big advantages, e.g. an excellent security environment, we also confront a lot of difficulties, particularly three following ones:
Firstly, national tourism promotion activities are not commensurate with the country’s tourism potential. Many people were surprised at what they were seeing because they had thought that Vietnam was a poor backward, or even a warring, nation. Because of very weak national tourism promotion activities, we have to not only introduce our products and services but also introduce images of our country to customers to make them know how Vietnam is now and what it has.
Secondly, the competitive environment is not really healthy, not because Vietnam lacks a legal framework or lacks State commitments to that, but because companies deliberately spoil it. Copying, imitation and price cuts instead of improving service quality remain common. This causes information confusion and disheartens creativity efforts.
Thirdly, human resources are disappointing. To convince and advise international customers, we need employees with a really good command of foreign languages and with deep knowledge of history, culture, geography and culture of customers. Human resources in Vietnam are abundant but the quality is low. Sometimes, we cannot recruit tourism consultants even from dozens of candidates.
Apart from its choice of focusing on French-speaking tourists, what made Amica Travel’s success?
We see that Amica Travel has achieved certain successes although they are still modest. The greatest success is the trust of customers. The evidence is that 40 per cent of our customers are return clients or those introduced by our customers.
Many factors make that success. But, I think that the most important is that we have good perspectives on tourism products fitting our customers’ tastes. Besides, we always define that the highest objective of Amica Travel is to make customers love the country and people where they visit.
Tourism products need to be based on real-life experiences and cultural exchanges. Landscapes and historic sites may be impressive, but meetings and contacts with people and participation in farming activities will certainly leave unforgettable memories on them. In this spirit, Amica Travel strongly develops community-based tourism to satisfy tourists’ demands for exchanging, sharing and discovery on the one hand, and to achieve a real sustainable tourism model on the other.
What cooperation opportunities will the visit to Vietnam by French President François Hollande bring to Vietnamese and French companies in general and the tourism sector in particular?
All Amica Travel founders used to study in France. 80 per cent of our employees speak French fluently. We all sense a close, common love for France and the French because Vietnam and France share a lot of common values. This closeness and the understanding of French culture has given us many opportunities to develop.
In addition to political and diplomatic factors, the visit of the French President is an opportunity for the two countries and the two peoples to understand each other more and strengthen their ties. Mutual understanding and affection are the foundation to open up more cooperation opportunities. We see specific opportunities in many areas where Vietnam has demand and France has strong advantages, such as energy, high-tech, green development and agriculture. Regarding tourism, this visit will certainly promote the image of Vietnam to the French, and thus increase the interest of French tourists in visiting Vietnam.
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