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THE CON TRĂ‚U TIMES Issue 8 - August 2011

Inspirational Travel 1

Inside This Issue

THE CON TRÂU TIMES

1. Joining the Buffalo Family 2. Staff of the Month 3. Buffalo Tours Vietnam Won “The Guide Award” for the eleventh time 4. Buffalo Tours Laos – The company trip to Kong Lor Cave 5. Greetings from Buffalo Tours Cambodia 6. High Presentation Impact Course 7. Wilderness Training in Cat Ba Island 8. Update from Thien Minh Group iVIVU.com – The leading online hotel booking service in Viet Nam 9. Feedback on what members of staff have been doing 10. Birthdays and Anniversaries

Tip of t he mont h

Joining Buffalo tours Ms. Michele Whealy – Country Manager – BT Cambodia Mr. Le Ngoc Son - Airport Representative cum Operation Executive - BT - SGN

Welcome to the Buffalo Tours team!

“To raise new questions, new possibilities, to regard old problems from a new angle, requires creative imagination and marks real advance in science.”

Albert Einstein

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Please join us in congratulating our new staff members on their positions at Buffalo Tours. We look forward to working with them in the future!

Leaving Buffalo Tours Ms. Nguyen Thi Thu Huong – BTA Manager – BTA Hanoi Ms. Nguyen Minh Yen – PR & Marketing Executive – BT Hanoi Ms. Ta Thi Tham – Operation Executive – BT SGN Thank you for your contributions to Buffalo Tours and we wish you success in the future!

THE CON TRÂU TIMES

STAFF OF THE MONTH – July 2011 Ms. Nguyen Thu Huong – HR Executive - BT Hanoi The Outstanding Customer Service Award of the Month has gone to Thu Huong. I am deeply impressed by Huong’s passion for her work and her willingness to learn and grow. Huong has been working feverishly behind the scene to ensure our first time ever company-wide training plan go as scheduled and willing to take constructive feedback on board to accommodate diverse training requirements from different teams. Huong has been extremely efficient in coordinating with all departments involved and played crucial role in ensuring successful launch of Product and BRS tests.

Mr. On Chi Minh – Tour Guide - Cholon Tours Minh has joined Cholon Tours as Chinese speaking guide since 2004. Minh approaches his work with full of enthusiasm and energy. In July, he received outstanding feedback from a group of passengers commending Minh as their world best guide they have ever seen.

Mr. Hoang Ngoc Loc – Tour Leaders BT Hanoi and Mr. Son To Laki – Tour Guide BT SGN We are pleased to announce that Hoang Ngoc Loc and Son To Laki have been awarded Best Guides for the Second Quarter of 2011!

We have received good deal of positive feedback on their outstanding customer service. The feedback is testament to their going the extra mile and making sure passengers having great holiday. Keep up the good work, Loc and Laik!

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THE CON TRÂU TIMES

Ms.Pham Thi Khanh Ly – Online Sales Executive – BT Hanoi Ly joined the online team from Group Reservations in February this year and although in person she is softly spoken, Ly is definitely not quiet in her sales ability. Since joining, she has continually improved on her sales month by month and is one of the strongest contributors to the improvement in Online Sales over the past few months. Her diligence, strong sales and BRS abilities, has earned Ly the right of being named as one of our Staff of the Month!

Ms.Trinh Minh Hao – Online Sales Executive – BT Hanoi Hao joined the online team in March this year and only recently completed her probation. Despite her short time with us, she has certainly proven what a vital and active member of the team she is. She has displayed her capabilities in sales, dealing with clients especially during tricky situations, she has also shown that she is a real team player. Not only is she always willing to help her colleagues, but she is also a great support to her manager by always offering suggestions and ideas for improvements and changes in the department. And on top of all of this, she scored 100% in the recent product questionnaire! So with this and along with her overall positive attitude, it is a great pleasure to award Ms Hao as a Staff of the Month!

Ms. Bui Thi Hao – GR Executive – BT Hanoi Congratulations on your award for Best Sales Consultant of the Month, Hao!!!

She has consistently demonstrated her high standard on professionalism.

We have received many positive feedback from Tucan and The Adventure Company commending on her outstanding customer service and problem solving. Hao is always available to help out other team member in need. She has exceeded sales budget for the first seven months of the year thanks to her hard work and dedication. Keep up the good work, Hao!!!

Ms.Tran Thi Minh Tam – Chinese Inbound Sales Cholon Tours Tran Thi Minh Tam is a dynamic Online Sales of Cholon Tours. She always provides great customer services to guests and ensures that they thoroughly have great holiday. She achieved outstanding sales target of VND1.3 billion with VND195 million in profit for the month of June.

People are our most valuable resource!

Nominate someone you think deserves recognition – someone who truly shines!

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THE CON TRÂU TIMES

Buffalo Tours Vietnam received our 11th

“the Guide Award” T

he annual Guide Award was held in Mui Ne with participation from 400 local travel companies on 29 July. The Guide Award organized by Vietnam Economic Times is to promote sustainable tourism, cultural heritage and recognize outstanding contribution to Vietnam’s tourism by local travel enterprises. Buffalo Tours has been awarded The Guide Award this year which means we have won the annual award for eleven consecutive years. Go Buffalo Team!!!

Greetings from Buffalo Tours Cambodia

W months.

armest greetings from Buffalo Tours Cambodia! We would like to share with you some of our key highlights in recent

could not spoil our fun) and we finished the night with an amazing karaoke session till early morning.

Written by: Mr. Suy Vet – Reservation Executive cum Volunteer Coordinator – BT Cambodia

We had responsible travel training from the Child Safe team in April, we learnt good deal of information in ensuring that Buffalo Tours and our clients protect local children.

We had a great party to welcome Michele as new Cambodia Country Manager and farewell Panya taking a new exciting challenge as Laos Country Manager. Panya has been an important part of Cambodia team and he played an instrumental role in developing the team and the projects in Cambodia.

Please join us in thanking Panya for his invaluable contribution, we strongly believe that Panya will be great asset to Laos team and we wish him all the best of success in the new role.

We are so happy to welcome Michele on board.

Her leadership, professionalism and experience will immensely help us maintain sustainable success and growth. All office staff, full time and part time guides, and key suppliers attended the fun night.

The dinner was excellent (even the thunderstorm

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THE CON TRÂU TIMES

BUFFALO TOURS LAOS THE COMPANY TRIP TO KONG LOR CAVE

D

eparting from Luang Prabang, 390km from Vientiane with countless turns and slopes along the way, we managed to arrive in Vientiane safe and well. An excellent dinner and a good night stay in Vientiane gave us full of energy to for the long journey the following day. The rain kept bucketing, our bus moved slowly passing through the mountains, hill tribe villages. Apparently, the downpour flooded the road which left us thoroughly drenched to the bones. We ended up wading through knee deep water before finding a smoky local truck to pull us through to our destination.

We could not believe our eyes of what we sawamazing scenery, it feels like we were on Halong Bay. We were welcomed by smiles following by a ‘SABAI DEE’ as we entered a small and remote village called KONG LOR. We got ourselves a very simple and clean local guesthouse with shared rooms and beds . We went for the shower immediately as we could not wait for our team building activities.

That was a perfect evening, we-Buffalo Tours Laos Team and Jet Wing, merged and split into smaller groups to begin our fun games. It was quite beau-

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tiful moments to witness our team communicating, exchanging ideas and thoughts, understanding and working together and excellent teamwork was taking shape.

It was definitely great opportunity for us to understand the local village, their way of life and the new experience.

We cannot describe enough of what we saw and the fun we had…a new adventure begins through unique MEMORIES. Written by: Mr. Panya Thin – Country Manager – BT Laos

THE CON TRÂU TIMES

High Impact Presentation Course “High impact presentation is one of the most important skills I always dreamed of since I work at Buffalo Tour Travel Agency Hanoi, a direct sales department of Buffalo tours. I was so lucky to attend the workshop conducted by The Dale Carnegie® Organization on 30th and 31st July. I can say that we had fantastic time together. I was so impressed with our enthusiastic and cheerful trainer, Mr. Huong.

We all got motivated and engaged in each of his interactive lessons. I remember we were having a good laugh at Bach’ body language – when he did a presentation on dance and romance. His gesture was so sweet and we all loved it.

Through the lessons we have learnt that : instead of telling clients what we have, we communicate the benefits clients will get when using our services and we should give clients much evidence as possible to convince them why they should choose us instead of general explanation. The high impact presentation skill proves practical and useful for all of us dealing with clients face to face every day and I make a point of practicing what I have learned at every opportunities I have.”

Written by: Ms. Lo Viet Ha – Travel Consultant Team Leader - BTA Hanoi

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THE CON TRÂU TIMES

Wilderness Training in Cat Ba Hi Buffalo members, I am Thang Nguyen, BuffaloTours guide. Like three other guides, I has been lucky to have the chance to attend the Wilderness training on Cat Ba island earlier this month. Thank you for organizing such a useful training for us, the tour leaders and tour guides who spend most of the time with our clients for the trekking, cycling, kayaking trips that accidents could happen anytime and in the middle of nowhere.

We were so impressed with the very practical and professional skills from the instructors, they gave us lots of useful information and how to handle with the accidents, such as drowning, prevent lightening strike, falling...

Indeed, we all enjoyed our trip to Cat Ba for this training, in which on the beach we did go through CPR, Trauma Management, Rescue and Treatment Immobilization, Patient Carries and Packaging, Water Rescue…etc that give much more insight of what the real situation could be. The instructors had very good way to engage us throughout the session, e.g. when we were on the boat moving out to the training place, he suddenly fell down to the boat floor, his hands tightly held his neck and called help, immediately, we checked him, felt the pulse, checked the heart beat and almost ready to do CPR but he just sat up and said “just wanted to test you guys react…”, we all felt glad putting our hands into such a real situation.

Thanks to Buffalo Tours, we really highly appreciate the great training course and excellent logistic arrangement. We look forward to opportunities to join more training like this with Buffalo Tours in the future.

Written by: Mr. Nguyen Minh Thang – Tour Guide - BT Hanoi

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THE CON TRÂU TIMES

Update from Thien Minh Group iVIVU.com – The leading online hotel booking service in Viet Nam HCMC, August 15, 2011 - VIVU LLC introduced iVIVU.com - the first online hotel booking website in Viet Nam, with over 1,000 domestic accommodations and over 18,500 International accommodations are ready to serve tourists. The price on iVIVU.com can be up to 50% cheaper than the public price of hotels. iVIVU.com is also the first online hotel booking system that supports both Vietnamese and English on the website, as well as customer assistance via the hotline 84.8. 3930.8290 In celebration of the debut of the portal, iVIVU.com launched a five-day promotion program for tourists from 15th to 20th of August. Thousands of T-shirts and key hooks will be presented to tourists booking rooms during the program. One voucher with three days/two nights free for two people(worth over VND 15 million) will be given daily to the person making the first & most expensive booking of the day. iVIVU.com is a online website of VIVU LLC. a joint-venture between Thien Minh Tourism Stock Company and Australia’s Wotif Group. With over 1,000 Vietnamese accommodations and over 18,500 International accommodations, iVIVU.com covers a large range of stays such as hotels (from 1 - 5 stars), motels, resorts, and even cruises in Vietnam and International.

Booking a stay on iVIVU.com is really easy, with only three steps: • Step 1: Browse your destination - Compare price between hotels in the place.

• Step 2: Choose your favorite hotel with detail of check-

in and check-out date.

• Step 3: Click the Book button. Fill out payment information and you’re done. iVIVU.com has an instant confirmation system that will send the customer a booking confirmation number to their email and a confirmation SMS to their mobile as soon as payment is received for the booking. iVIVU.com also has various payment methods such as: online payment via Credit cards (Visa, Master, American Express, JCB); ATM payments or direct payment at VIVU LLCand at over 250 transaction locations of Asia Commercial Bank (ACB) The hotline of iVIVU.com is available 24/7 and our CSC staff can assist the customer/suppliers in both English and Vietnamese.

“With the popularity of the Internet in Vietnam, we see the potential development of online hotel booking system. In 2010 and early in 2011, an average of about 600,000 to 800,000 searches for the keyword “resort” in Vietnam over the internet. In the peak month, that number is increased to more than 1 million. In addition, demand for finding hotels on the internet reachs 2-3 million searches / month. In particular, searching for “tours” up the highest rate, reach 5-7 million searches / month. With a high professional, fast and efficient, we hope iVIVU.com will meet the needs of hotels reservations, travel and entertainment for Vietnamese and international customers.” said Mr. Tran Trong Kien – Chairman of VIVU LLC. Written by: Mr. Nguyen Van Phuc – Marketing ExecutiveVIVU LLC

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WHAT OUR STAFF MEMBERS HAVE BEEN DOING

FEEDBACK ON

THE CON TRÂU TIMES

10 Inspirational Travel

“

Our trip was a great success thank you.

Buffalo Tours were great. Luckily we never had to share our guide or boat so it was totally personal. We did a lot. We loved Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon is used to describe the inner city only apparently). The downtown is still so surprisingly elegant with its tree-lined streets and French influence. The boat trip to the delta was wonderful and we followed up the trip to the tunnels with a visit to the War Museum which was pretty confronting.

The Majestic Hotel was a great choice. It certainly had character without sacrificing comfort. It was within easy walking distance of the good shopping, markets, opera house etc and being on the river had a lovely view from the open - air rooftop bar. We were lucky enough to catch a ballet performance at the Opera House. Of course the food was good too, especially after the Philippines.

Our only complaint would be that we didn’t have long enough! “

Birthdays

&

THE CON TRÂU TIMES

Anniversaries Birthdays: Phan Thi My Hanh Nguyen Thi Thuy Van Ha Thi Hue Tran Xuan Quynh Parintr Mateveravong Lertvilay Vongmisay Nguyen Duc Hanh Vo Nguyen Hoan Ngoc Thuy Do Thi Huong Chansamone Phetphothong Nguyen Lam Thy Pham Thanh Trang Touy Sihalath Pham Minh Huong Nguyen Song Tung Sarayuth Toasing Trinh Thi Minh Hao Viparat Kraisuwanasarn Sandrine Depeux

Sep 4th Sep 8th Sep 8th Sep 8th Sep 8th Sep 8th Sep 9th Sep 10th Sep 10th Sep 11th Sep 12th Sep 15th Sep 16th Sep 17th Sep 17th Sep 18th Sep 22nd Sep 29th Sep 30th

Agent Sales Executive Accountant Agent Sales Executive Admin cum Receptionist Airport Representatives – BT Thailand Operations Executive – BT Laos Tour Guide – BT Hanoi Assistant Travel General Manager – BTA SG Accountant Operations and Purchasing Executive – BT Laos Operation Supervisor – BT SGN Accountant – Cholon Tours Operation Manager –BT Laos Accountant Online sales Executive Reservations Executive – BT Thailand Online sales Executive Operation Manager – BT Thailand Spanish Sales- Team leader – BT Hanoi

Anniversaries: Do Thi Huong– Accountant - Completing 3 years of service Bui Thi Hao - GR Executive - Completing 5 years of service Nguyen Phuong Thuy -MKT Assistant - Completing 1 year of service Nguyen Nhat Thang – IT - Completing 3 year of service Nguyen Manh Hung - IT- Completing 3 year of service Dao Thanh Xuan – Online Marketing - Completing 3 year of service Nguyen Van Tho – Tour Guide - Completing 4 years of service Nguyen Huu Đuc – Tour Guide - Completing 4 years of service Trang Kim Tuong - Branch Manager BT SG Office - Completing 3 years of service

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