Educational lesson on “Tourism Demand in Vietnam” with expert Ta Duy Bau, Director of Horizon Vietnam Travel

On the morning of September 10th, 2020, the students of the two tourism classes of the QH.2018 class of the Faculty of French Language and Culture (University of Foreign Languages ​​- Vietnam National University Hanoi) took part in a lesson on the topic “The demand for tourism in Vietnam” (Demande touristique au Vietnam). It took place in the faculty’s seminar room, together with Mr. Ta Duy Bau, director of the travel company Horizon Vietnam Travel, and the two lecturers Ms. Nguyen Thu Ha and Ms. Do Thanh Thuy.

Mr Ta Duy Bau in exchange with the students

Horizon Vietnam Travel was founded in 2008 by Mr. Ta Duy Bau, a former student of the French Faculty (class K39), who is dynamic, humorous and loves to travel. Mr. Bau has many years of experience as a French-speaking tour guide with travel companies in Vietnam and Indochina countries. Horizon Vietnam Travel is a travel company well-known in the Francophone community, specializing in various forms of travel, especially tailor-made trips (voyage sur mesure).

In the lesson, Mr. Bau presented four main points of “tourism demand in Vietnam”: the components of the demand, the forms of travel, the travelers and the seasonality of the industry.

Tourism demand

First, Mr. Ta Duy Bau talked about the expectations of French travelers when visiting Vietnam. By asking basic questions – “What do you eat? Where do you stay? How do you travel? What activities do you organize?” – he gave the students a concrete and understandable picture of the term “tourism demand”.

The forms of travel

The students follow the lecture carefully

From his experience in business management, he named the types of travel frequently chosen by customers: classic trips, family trips and business trips. He also emphasized the strong development of new forms of travel such as tailor-made private trips (tour privé et sur mesure) and culinary trips (tour gastronomique).

The Travelers

On the topic of differentiating “inbound” and “outbound” travelers in Vietnam, Mr. Bau also talked about tapping into outbound customers who travel from abroad to another country but buy a domestic company’s travel product.

Seasonality in tourism

Lively exchange between the expert and the students

By highlighting the industry’s seasonality, Mr. Bau highlighted the importance of effective marketing. A travel company – like any other company – must meet at least one of these criteria: a unique product, a special distribution channel, attentive and dedicated customer service or a competitive price. He then introduced the students to two marketing tools that his company frequently uses: Google Trends and Google Ads.

Exchange between experts and students

With his approachable, humorous and open manner, Mr. Ta Duy Bau encouraged the students and gave reasons for choosing a Francophone tourism career: applying the French skills you have learned, traveling for free and expanding knowledge and life experience through encounters with many people and places. He particularly emphasized that anyone who works in tourism becomes a “cultural ambassador” for their country and contributes to Vietnam becoming internationally known and appreciated.

It was an extremely educational time: the students not only heard valuable experiences from the tourism industry, but also experienced honest conversations about life. The inspiring hour with the expert Ta Duy Bau helped the two tourism classes of the QH.2018 class to consolidate their knowledge in theory and practice and to recognize their professional orientation more clearly.