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After finishing a trip the customers
and the travel agent’s staff feel close.
“Many still keep in touch with us after
a tour and consider us friends. Some
invite us to visit their home,” says Ha
Anh of Vietravel.
At the moment, Vietravel is op-
erating charity tours to destinations
such as Ha Giang and Dien Bien where
there are many schools in hardship.
Customers on such tours are overseas
Vietnamese, youths and middle aged
customers from the South and some-
times children whose parents would
like them to learn to take care of and
share with other people.
Today, there are many other travel
agents providing the same kind of tour,
such as Vietrantour, Hanoi Red Tour, Viet
Vision, and Indochina Traveland, but Vi-
etravel is still the travel agent which
operates the tours most frequently.
“This kind of tour brings me a to-
tally different experience, even in a fa-
miliar place, especially when you see
and communicate with the children,
learn about their daily life and bring
them some little gifts. These meaning-
ful tours give me very deep and happy
feelings which I will remember for my
whole life – it is not something that is
gone in a flash like a normal trip,” says
29 year old Hai Anh from Hanoi.
A testing journey
While on a normal tour travellers
simply choose a beautiful destination,
but on a charity tour, you must con-
sider the place where people are in
most need. This usually means a trip to
a remote area where transportation and
accommodation is not so good.
This can make these tours more
costly to operate according to Dang
Thanh Tung: “The expenses for such a
tour can be high; we need to use small
passenger cars instead of 45 seat buses
as usual and we need extra cars to ferry
the donations. This all raises the cost,
but profit is not something we target
on these tours, so we offer them at the
same price as normal tours.”
Preparing the donations is another
hard task. “Some children in mountain-
ous regions walk in bare feet, so giv-
ing them socks without shoes is use-
less. The size is another matter to think
about carefully,” Tung explains.
Pham Ha, who works for a life in-
surance company in Hanoi, often joins
charity activities in remote areas such
as Dao San and Son La, but she is still
considering charity tours to other desti-
nations: “When going for charity only, I
sometimes do not have a proper place
to sleep and it is less about enjoying the
beauty of the land,” she says.
However, these charity tours can
be the most harmonious choice if you
love travelling, are ready to experience
life and have a desire to contribute to
the community.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY