Immediately following the National Day holiday on September 2, Lead-UP Academy will continue its partnership journey with Hoi An Tourist Holding Company through the two-day “Professional Consultative Selling Skills” training program, specially designed for the Hoi An Travel team. Rather than being merely a course on tour-selling techniques, the program aims to facilitate a critical shift: from simply providing “tour proposals and quotations” to delivering consultative solutions, designing customer experiences, and managing customers throughout the entire sales journey.

The market is growing, but the way customers purchase travel has changed

Vietnam’s tourism sector continues to show positive momentum in 2026. According to the National Statistics Office under the Ministry of Finance, Vietnam welcomed approximately 13.9 million international visitors in the first seven months of 2026, an increase of 13.8% compared with the same period in 2025. In Da Nang alone, accommodation establishments served approximately 9.778 million visitors in the first six months of 2026, up 22.5%, including around 5.16 million international visitors and 4.619 million domestic visitors. During the first half of the year, the city also recorded 101 MICE groups comprising 28,428 visitors.

Another noteworthy indicator can be observed in the revenue structure. During the same period, Da Nang’s accommodation and food service revenue was estimated at VND 32.4 trillion, an increase of 21.6%, while revenue from travel services and tourism support services reached approximately VND 2.35 trillion, up 10.4%.

These figures indicate strong market expansion in terms of visitor volume. However, in terms of growth rate, travel services have not expanded as rapidly as accommodation and food services. This does not provide sufficient grounds to attribute the difference to sales capability; nevertheless, it raises an important question for travel businesses: As travelers become increasingly proactive, have more choices, and gain easier access to information, where can travel businesses create distinctive value?

This is one of the key contextual factors underpinning the development of this training program by Lead-UP Academy in collaboration with Hoi An Travel.

From “customers buying tours” to “customers buying memorable experiences”

In the past, customers commonly approached travel companies with questions such as: “What tours do you have?”; “How many days does the tour last?”; or “How much does it cost?” Today, purchasing behavior has changed significantly.

In the B2C segment – individual/FIT travelers, customers can independently search for information, compare alternatives, and book individual services through OTAs, Google, social media platforms, and increasingly with the support of AI-powered tools. Customers no longer approach travel consultants merely to receive a standard tour itinerary; they expect their needs to be accurately understood, to receive relevant recommendations, and to be supported in designing a journey that reflects their individual preferences.

In the B2B segment – group customers, business partners, and MICE clients, requirements are even more complex. Sales professionals need not only a strong understanding of tourism products but also the ability to coordinate multiple stakeholders, develop appropriate solutions, manage pricing and service conditions, respond to changes, control SLAs, coordinate suppliers, and maintain long-term customer relationships.

Accordingly, the central proposition of the program is that today’s customers do not simply “buy a tour”. They purchase peace of mind, the assurance of being understood, the quality of professional consultation, and a thoughtfully designed, memorable journey. This perspective is also aligned with Lead-UP Academy’s training philosophy: rather than applying a generic “sales skills template”, each program should be developed from the specific industry context, actual processes, real-life situations, and genuine operational bottlenecks of the business. This reflects the “Practical First – Result Driven” orientation that Lead-UP Academy is pursuing across its 2026 R&D program portfolio.

Why is it necessary to shift from “tour proposals and quotations” to solution-based consultation?

In the travel business, quotations remain necessary. Tour programs remain necessary. However, if a salesperson merely receives a request, retrieves an existing itinerary, calculates the price, and sends it to the customer, the business can easily fall into a competitive environment in which price becomes the ultimate deciding factor.

True consultative capability, however, must begin well before a quotation is prepared. A consultant needs to understand who the customer is travelling with, the purpose of the trip, what truly matters to the customer, which factors are non-negotiable, how flexible the budget may be, and which alternative providers or solutions the customer is currently considering. When this level of understanding is achieved, a quotation is no longer simply a cost breakdown.

A quotation becomes a value proposition.

This is also the core transformation that the program seeks to create for the Hoi An Travel team: moving from the mindset of “selling whatever tour is available” to the capability of “designing travel solutions that align with the objectives and needs of each individual customer.”

A PREVIEW OF 08 CORE TOPICS ACROSS THE TWO-DAY TRAINING PROGRAM

Over the two-day program, which will be delivered immediately after the September 2 National Day holiday, participants will work through the full sales journey of a travel sales professional, including:

1. The current B2C and B2B tourism market - identifying changes in purchasing behavior and the emerging expectations placed on travel sales professionals.
2. Multi-channel lead reception and management processes - standardizing how sales leads are received, classified, assigned, processed, and monitored.
3. Professional consultation scripts for phone calls and messaging - ensuring that every customer interaction has a clear objective and moves toward a defined next step.
4. A structured customer-needs discovery question set - moving beyond basic information gathering to uncover customers’ objectives, motivations, preferences, and decision-making criteria.
5. Proposal design and personalized consultation skills - converting customer information into relevant solutions rather than sending the same standard program to every customer.
6. Objection handling and price negotiation skills - protecting the value of the proposed solution while maintaining a constructive and positive customer relationship.
7. Standardization of quotations and tour proposals - helping proposals communicate options, value, differentiation, and the next course of action more clearly.
8. Post-quotation follow-up and sales closing - developing a strategic follow-up approach and avoiding the common practice of “sending a quotation and simply waiting for the customer to respond.”

Importantly, these eight topics are not designed as isolated modules. Instead, they are integrated into one end-to-end sales journey: Lead → Approach → Needs Discovery → Solution Design → Quotation → Objection Handling → Follow-up → Closing and Handover.

BEYOND TEACHING “HOW TO SELL”: TOWARD STANDARDIZING HOW WORK IS DONE

One of Lead-UP Academy’s key R&D orientations for 2026 is that training should not stop at helping participants “learn one more skill”. The more important questions are: What will participants do differently after the training? And when multiple individuals change their way of working, what can the organization standardize into a shared operating practice?

Lead-UP Academy defines its training philosophy around three principles: practical relevance - hands-on application - tangible results, with workplace application serving as the primary measure of value. Its 2026 R&D programs are likewise developed around three pillars: industry-contextualized practice - measurable outcomes - transformation into organizational capability.

Therefore, for the program designed for Hoi An Travel, the objective is not merely to conduct a two-day sales training course. Lead-UP Academy aims to contribute to the development of a more consistent approach to customer engagement, a clearer process for managing sales opportunities, and a more customer-value-centered consultative mindset.

Everything is ready for the journey immediately after the September 2 National Day holiday

While the September 2 National Day holiday provides an opportunity for teams to rest, recharge, and renew their energy, the behind-the-scenes preparations for the program have continued according to plan, with Lead-UP Academy and the relevant implementation teams finalizing all necessary arrangements.

For Lead-UP Academy, the spirit of being “practical and action-oriented” is not reflected only in how training is delivered in the classroom. It begins with how needs are researched, how programs are designed, how each learning tool is prepared, and how results are pursued through to completion. Lead-UP Academy is now fully prepared for the two-day journey with the Hoi An Travel team through the “Professional Consultative Selling Skills” training program.

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