Bringing Hue closer to everyone

1. I met Anh Thu twice, and it was quite late for both meetings. But at both times, I always saw smiles on her face filled with energy, and the stories shared by her always made people like her and enjoy her unique idea and her positive thinking.

Anh Thu (3rd right) and the Professional Fellow Program participants pose for a photo with the officers of the US Department of State.

Graduated in Business Administration, Hue University of Economics, Ngo Vu Anh Thu has been studying English by herself and decided to try out as a tour guide to "promote the beauty of the country and people of Vietnam to tourists, help them have a new insight into Hue”.

After three years of hard work and continuous learning, in 2015, Anh Thu decided to start a business in tourism.

2. Starting her business single-handedly in a semi-professional way, Thu only had her “capital " which was her unique ideas to "help visitors better understand the culture and history of the S-shaped country"; tours designed by Thu always contain interesting historical information, attractions associated with the historical milestones of Hue and Vietnam.

Anh Thu worked for the Arkansas State Administration of Tourism, USA

In 2015, Ngo Vu Anh Thu received a scholarship granted by the U.S Department of State for prominent social contributions from young people in Southeast Asia called the Young Southeast Asian Leaders Initiative-YSEALI 2015.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, as a marketing intern at the Arkansas State Tourism, Anh Thu spent most of the time (for six weeks) learning and acquiring knowledge, and then she came home with “the enthusiasm, and the idea of ​​contributing to bringing Hue closer to tourists and sharing employment opportunities with young people”.

That same year, Anh Thu was one of 500 young ASEAN leaders honored to attend the talk with former President Barack Obama in Kuala Lumpur. Inspired by that encounter, Anh Thu became more confident in "the creativity of the younger generation".

3. Having become sufficiently "mature", in 2016, Ngo Vu Anh Thu established Beebee Travel Company with a group of young, active guides. However, startup business has never been easy. "Only when you start to get into it, do you understand that the knowledge learned at university is not enough to help you know what business is."

When the market already has several big tourism company with strong footholds and branding, a young business like Beebee, if it wants to survive, can only compete by the quality of tours and different ideas.

Beebee's CEO said excitedly: "Instead of following the traditional way (focusing on popular tours for the vast majority of tourists), I'm interested in highly-educated international tourists, aged 50 and above, who want to explore, discover and feel the history and culture of Hue and Vietnam.”

The tours that Anh Thu designs are closely associated with the historical milestones of Vietnam, such as “Hue history tour”, “The Vietnam War”, “The Nguyen Emperors in Hue City”. Anh Thu is also interested in designing a tour that can bring economic values to the community and gives tourists the best insight into the Vietnamese people's life with “The Hue countryside tour” and “The Hue food tour”.

With the goal of "Bringing Hue closer to everyone", Beebee CEO is the founder of the project "Hue Free walking tour" for young people (22-26 years old) in the hope of making Hue become one of the friendly and unforgettable tourist destinations for tourists and the "Hue Free walking tour" is the predecessor of "The Hue history" - a tour organized by Anh Thu for free for tourists to understand the cultural values ​​of the locality better.

Anh Thu (yellow shirt) with tourists and residents in Thuy Thanh

4. To Anh Thu, the biggest passion is to inspire the young and share her experience with them, to help them become more mature, more confident in their career. By that, she can contribute to the improvement of the quality of human resources for Hue tourism in particular and make positive changes in tourism in Vietnam in general.

In 2017, Thu and Beebee Travel received strong support from MBI, the Mekong Business Initiative, and Anh Thu herself received the WISE Scholarship, the initiative to support women to start their businesses.

Anh Thu was also invited to attend the exhibition at the Women and Economic Forum in the framework of the APEC Vietnam held in Hue, and she is one of the business women in Vietnam receiving the consultation for startups from Cherie Blair Foundation, the Fund for Startups launched by British Prime Minister’s spouse Cherie Blair.

On TripAdvisor, the famous travel website, there have been nearly 300 5-star reviews from international visitors. According to them, there have been no tours in Vietnam that offer such a vivid overview of Vietnamese history and of the ancient capital of Hue like those provided by Beebee Travel.

By Lien Minh