This month is my birthday month, so my wife and I went to Washington DC for a little celebration. I’d like to share some tips that we collected and a list of places that may be of interest to you. (Spoiler alert: we are into food!)
What to do for a better experience
Stay close to a Metro station. DC has a very good network of Metro trains and buses that cover a wide area in the city center. To save time, stay close to a metro station. It’s particularly helpful if you have luggage to carry or when it rains.
Stay close to a convenience store. It’s annoying that we paid good money to stay at a Courtyard Marriott hotel and they didn’t give us any drinking water. Luckily, there was a CVS Pharmacy that’s just one block away. So the pain of carrying water back to our hotel was manageable. You don’t want to do that over 3-4 blocks.
Download the SmarTrip app and add a pass. Ride fares in DC fluctuate, depending on the day and time of travel. To avoid the hassle of remembering every detail, we downloaded the SmarTrip app, bought either a 1/3-day unlimited pass and added it to the Wallet app. Our phones became our passes and we didn’t have to remember about the cards or take our wallets every time. If you take 5 or more train/bus rides a day, a 1-day unlimited pass is highly recommended.
Make a reservation. Many official buildings and museums in DC require time-entry passes. Therefore, reserve your spots in advance. You don’t need to be strictly on time, but having a confirmation code on hand definitely helps.
Get the registration card at Library of Congress. The Main Reading Room at Library of Congress is a spectacular place that we believe is worth a visit. It’s accessible only with a registration card. To get a card, a visitor can pre-register online, but must officially register in-person either at the Jefferson or Madison building. While the line in the Jefferson building is long, there was nobody at the Madison building. We took the pain of going through security a couple of times, but we saved a bit of time by getting the card at Madison and going back to Jefferson.
Talk to your Representative or Senator before going to the Capitol Building. The Capitol Building is free to the public and each tour takes about 30 minutes. We enjoyed being there and learning a bit about the building’s history. But access to the Senate or House of Representatives gallery requires a different pass. For international visitors, passes can be issued onsite. For US residents, passes must come from the office of their Representatives or Senators. Thus, if you want to enter either gallery, it’s best to plan and get those passes in advance.
Travel light. It’s mandatory to go through security inside official buildings. It’s more convenient to have no belts and wear shoes that can be taken off and put on easily. Remember that a trip to DC likely involves a lot of standing and walking. Therefore, make sure you carry as little as possible. Your back, shoulders and legs will appreciate you.
Wear walking shoes, if possible. These shoes will aid your legs and back in absorbing shocks. My wife wore better walking shoes than I did. There were a couple of days when I complained about my back while she was still ok.
Be early. Same-day tickets to the Washington Monument are distributed at 8:45AM every day. If you are there at 8:45AM, you will be at the end of a long line and risk not having the tickets. Also, the African American History Museum is pretty cool. However, if you are not there early, there will be also a line to the most popular part of the place.
Places to eat
Pearl’s Bagel
Address: 1017 7th St NW, Washington, DC 20001. Opening time: 8AM – 2PM
Soleluna Bakery
Address: 1787 Columbia Rd NW, Washington, DC 20009. Opening time: 7AM – 3PM
The pastries are absolutely delicious
Nino’s Bakery
Address: 1310 L St NW #100, Washington, DC 20005. Opening time: 8AM – 12:30PM
The passion fruit, black sesame and pistachio croissants are phenomenal.
Bodegon Spanish Tapas
Address: 515 8th St SE, Washington, DC 20003
We only tried the paella and were blown away
Unconventional Diner
Address: 1207 9th St NW, Washington, DC 20001
One of a few great places that open by 10AM, as far as I know. We went there 15′ after it opened and the place was already crowded. Without a reservation, guests will be seated at the bar on a first-come-first-serve basis. My wife had the Dirty Caesar Salad and I had the Lebanese Fried Rice. Both were excellent and didn’t take long to make.
Un je ne sais Quoi
Address: 1361 Connecticut Ave NW, Washington, DC 20036
The pastries here are more expensive than at other places. What we tried was good, but we probably won’t go there every day
Baan Siam
Address: 425 I St NW, Washington, DC 20001
The Mixed Curry and Flying Fish Green Mango Salad were outstanding, but because we didn’t particularly like pickles, the “Khao Soi” dish was a bit of a letdown. You should reserve in advance as this place is very popular.
Chercher Ethiopian Restaurant
Address: 1334 9th St NW, Washington, DC 20001
If you haven’t tried Ethiopian food before, a visit to this Michelin restaurant is worthwhile. The food is colorful and good, especially the beef.
What Booking.com does is very easy to understand: to facilitate online travel reservations between travel service providers and travelers. The company was founded in the Netherlands in 1996 under the original name Bookings.nl. In 2000, Bookings.nl merged with Bookings Online to form Booking.com; which was subsequently acquired by Priceline Group five years later. The acquisition was so successful that the parent company Priceline Group changed its name to Booking Holdings in 2018.
Booking Holdings includes many well-known brands to travelers such as Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, Rentalcars.com, Kayak and OpenTable. These different platforms enable online reservations for accommodation, flight tickets, rental cars, activities and restaurants. As of the end of 2022, Booking Holdings’ services are available in multiple languages to millions of travelers around the world, making the parent company one of the most powerful players in the travel industry.
Revenue streams and expenses
Let’s talk one thing that everybody understands: money. Booking Holdings (Booking) has three revenue streams: Agency, Merchant and Other revenues.
Agency revenues come from travel bookings in which the company connects travel service providers with travelers. Think of it as matchmaking. Travel service providers are responsible for processing payments as well as all the related costs. For the services provided, Booking earns a commission per every transaction for which it invoices the service provider after travel is completed.
Merchant revenues, on the other hand, are derived from transactions in which Booking does the matchmaking AND facilitates payments from travelers. In this model, because Booking offers more value than in the Agency model, it earns not only reservation commissions, but also other related fees.
Last but not least, Other revenues consist of 1/ revenue earned by OpenTable; 2/ advertising on all of its platforms and 3/ compensation for sending referrals to other online travel agencies.
On the other side of the equation, Booking has the following main, including but not limited to, expenses:
Marketing: In 2022, Booking spent almost $6 billion on its brands, search engine keyword purchases, affiliate programs and other performance advertising. This expense line item usually makes up around 1/3 of Booking’s revenue. Investors pay attention to Booking’s marketing expense because the more efficiently the company can generate traffic and business, the better the earnings will be.
Sales: Booking incurs different expenses for processing payments and making sure these payments go through smoothly. There are also costs related to call center, content translation among others. Sales makes up about 8% to 10% of Booking’s revenue.
Personel: salaries, payroll taxes, bonuses, other benefits and compensations make up around 15-20% of the total revenue
Administrative: recruiting, training, office expenses and other administrative costs amount to 5-6% of Booking’s revenue
Technology: back office software and keeping sites running reliably cost Booking about 3-4% of its annual turnover
Agency vs Merchant Model
Let’s talk about the two primary business models in the travel industry.
In the Agency model, as mentioned before, Booking acts as a matchmaking middleman between travelers and service providers without being involved in the payment. Revenue comes in the form of commission on a transaction basis. Booking only gets paid after generating actual business for its partners, ie. after guests booked, used and paid for services. To travel service partners, there are several advantages. First, they get to decide on their prices and inventory, maximizing revenue and profits. Second, there is no longer a risk of the agency (Booking) going bankrupt. Third, service providers have positive cash flow since they are paid by travelers first before having to pay Booking.
Nonetheless, there are a few downsides of this model to service providers. Being free to control inventory means that they are at risk of having unsold perishable inventory. Additionally, these providers have to absorb the costs of processing payments, including interchange, fraud protection, chargebacks and compliance. Travel merchants, especially those in the US, have higher interchange rates (2%+) than merchants from other high-frequency categories such as groceries or gas. In other words, US-based travel merchants lost at least 2% of its revenue per transaction when they process payments. It’s a real cost that any business owner will take into consideration.
In the Merchant model, the likes of Expedia and Booking Holdings buy inventory in bulk from supply partners, at a significant discount obviously, and sell it either a la carte or in a bundle with add-on services. To supply providers, the Merchant model solves the volume question and takes care of all the expenses related to payments. However, they don’t have control over inventory or prices and they have to suffer on the margin as Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) demand a meaningful discount for the value offered.
The model in which a travel service provider should engage with Booking, in my view, depends on the size of the provider and where it operates. If a provider is a small boutique hotel with 20 rooms, because the provider doesn’t have leverage over Booking, they would have to absorb a high commission rate in the Merchant model. Hence, the Agency model looks more attractive from the margin perspective. However, the provider will have to manage and sell inventory, as well as deal with all the payment-related issues.
If a provider is a well-known hotel chain with multiple properties and hundreds of rooms, the dynamic is different. In this case, the provider is more likely to engage the Merchant model: use its significant bargaining power to negotiate a lower commission while ensuring that every month, some inventory is already sold.
I want to touch on payments a little bit before we move forward. This issue may not be top-of-mind, but can have meaningful consequences to a business. First, if a merchant processes payments by itself, it has to invest in infrastructure so that popular payment methods are available and it is compliant with all regulations. This task is not always easy or cheap. Here is Booking on the topic:
We are processing more of our transactions on a merchant basis where we facilitate payments from travelers through the use of payment cards and other payment methods (such as PayPal, Alipay, Paytm, and WeChat Pay). While processing transactions on a merchant basis allows us to process transactions for properties that do not otherwise accept payment cards and to increase our ability to offer a variety of payment methods and flexible transaction terms to consumers, we incur additional payment processing costs (which are typically higher for foreign currency transactions) and other costs related to these transactions, such as costs related to fraudulent payments and transactions and fraud detection. As we expand our payments services to consumers and business partners, in addition to the revenues from these transactions, we may experience a significant increase in these costs, and our results of operations and profit margins could be materially adversely affected, in particular if we experience a significant increase in non-variable costs related to fraudulent payments and transactions.
…In addition, as our payment processing activities continue to develop, we expect to be subject to additional regulations, including financial services regulations, which we expect to result in increased compliance costs and complexities, including those associated with the implementation of new or advanced internal controls, including, by way of example, those arising from the E.U.’s Payment Services Directive 2 and similar legislation. The implementation of these processes may result in increased compliance costs and administrative burdens.
A property owner is unlikely to be as good at Booking in setting up a great payment system. Hence, it may help to reduce operational workload to just outsource this particular task to Booking. Second, interchange rates for US-based merchants are often north of 2% and have serious impact on the bottom line. A single boutique property owner can’t negotiate a more favorable term with the networks. In this case, the likes of Booking Holdings can offer value. Booking pays partners in the Merchant model in two ways: either through a virtual credit card or by bank transfer. With its market power, I think Booking Holdings can negotiate a better deal with the networks and help merchant partners lower the interchange costs. If merchants want to take payments through a bank transfer, Booking charges 1.1 – 1.9%, which is often lower than credit card interchange rates in the US. In Europe, where interchange rates are regulated and much lower than those in the US, this factor is not as relevant.
The difference in interchange rates, depending on where a property is located, is the perfect transition to the second factor determining which model a travel service provider should adopt. Here is what Booking wrote in one SEC filing:
For example, in the European Union and the United Kingdom, the Package Travel Directive and other local laws governing the sale of travel services (the “Package Directive”) sets out broad requirements such as local registration, certain mandatory financial guarantees, disclosure requirements, and other rules regulating the provision of single travel sales, travel packages, and linked travel arrangements. The Package Directive also creates additional liability for a provider of travel packages, which could be the OTC, for performance of the travel services within a packaged trip under certain circumstances. Some parts of our business are already subject to the broad scope of the Package Directive, and as our offerings continue to diversify and expand, we may become subject to additional requirements of the Package Directive. Compliance with this directive could be costly and complex or, as a result of these requirements, we could choose to limit offerings that would otherwise be beneficial for the business, any of which could adversely affect our business, results of operations, or ability to grow and compete. Any changes to the Package Directive, including any changes to the scope of the travel services covered, increased levels of consumer protections, or changes to the requirements of financial guarantees could be costly or complex to comply with and may also adversely affect our business, results of operations, or ability to grow and compete in the future.
Because of the regulatory overheads, Booking Holdings and its peers are not motivated to engage in the Merchant model as they may be elsewhere. Hence, merchants in the UK or Europe may not have this option available even if they want it.
How They Are Staying Competitive
Booking Holdings thrives when their flywheel works properly: having more travelers attracts more service providers while having more service providers is a real value-add to travelers. As long as Booking proves that it can help partners grow sustainably (ie. bring more business and value at a competitive commission), partners will come. The question becomes: how can Booking keep travelers making reservations on their platforms when there are so many alternatives out there?
The first step is mind share. Booking has to be the first name in travelers’ mind when they start the process of booking a trip. Showing up at the top of search result pages helps. Ads such as Super Bowl commercials also helps drive awareness. Both of these things require technical skills and investments. Because I think Booking Holdings is very good at SEO, judging from my experience searching for lodging, and can spend millions of dollars every year on marketing, it’s a real competitive advantage.
But the work doesn’t stop when travelers go to Booking’s sites. Travelers tend to look at other sources and see if they can get more value elsewhere. First-party providers are motivated to lower the price for the same booking on their website a bit just to avoid commission to OTAs. Therefore, Booking must first ensure parity in everything: photos, features, map location, pricing, booking protection and cancellation policies. In this area, I think Booking is brilliant in creating the Genius program. Genius is a marketing program in which participating partners get more visibility and business in exchange for, at least, an automatic 10% discount on their “least expensive and most popular room type or unit”. The more a traveler books with Booking, the more Genius benefits they have. It incentivizes travelers to do business with Booking while offering to providers access to these coveted frequent travelers. Consumers save money, partners generate more business and Booking is a happy middleman. Win-win-win.
Furthermore, it’s important that Booking becomes a one-stop shop for all things travel. A trip includes other components than just accommodation, including, you know, flights, car rentals and activities on a trip. Looking up several providers for each of the components takes time. Hence, it’s really valuable to travelers when Booking can let them reserve everything on one platform. To the best of my knowledge, AirBnb does not offer flight reservations. First-party websites like Marriott.com do offer vacation packages, but they only have the inventory that they own and reviews on those properties. With Booking, consumers have access to a wider selection and more extensive reviews.
On the connected trip, on our long-term vision is to make booking and experiencing travel easier, more personal and more enjoyable, while delivering better value to our traveler customers and supplier partners. We have expanded our offering into travel verticals other than accommodations with a focus on flights.
And in the future, we will work to link relevant travel components together to provide a more seamless and flexible booking and travel experience. We believe that as a result of this initiative and the improved consumer experience we will drive increases in customer engagement and loyalty to our platform over time. We have continued to make progress on further developing our flight offering on Booking.com, which is now available in over 50 countries.
This flight offering gives us the ability to help our consumers book another important component of their travel in one place on our platform and allows us to engage with potential customers who choose their flight options early in their travel discovery process. We continue to see that over 20% of all of our flight bookers globally are new to Booking.com. We will continue this important work to provide our customers the best possible trip experience we can offer.
Source: Booking CEO on Q4 FY2022 Earnings Call
Summary
Booking used to rely on the Agency model. They started to transition more to the Merchant model in 2017 and gained great strides. As of 2022, it made up 44% and 42% of Booking’s total gross volume and revenue respectively, up fro the mid-teens five years ago. Then they followed up with initiatives such as additional offerings (flights for instance) and payments. I think the management team has done the right things to grow their business and be competitive. The numbers don’t lie. Booking Holdings long trailed its rival Expedia in gross bookings (GB) before the pandemic, but since then, has recovered faster and better than Expedia. That translated into a bigger gap in revenue. While Expedia’s revenue hasn’t come back to pre-pandemic level, Booking’s already surpassed it in 2022. The current status, by no means, is a guarantee of future outcome. Booking must not be complacent, especially when a challenger like AirBnb is growing fast and furious, albeit at from a smaller base.
Here is a collection of what I have eaten so far since landing in Saigon 3 weeks ago. I know that travel during Covid is tricky and exhausting as I experienced it first hand in, but if you can make it to my country and city, I hope this will help you get to know our cuisine. I don’t claim that the list below is the best in class. I visited some shops after some quick Google search while others were just sheer coincidence. Since most of them offer street food, always remember to ask for prices or a menu before making an order to avoid being ripped off.
A very traditional dish in Vietnam that originates from Hue, our old capital. There are plenty of options in Saigon. The shop where I had the above bowl is right at the corner of Phan Boi Chau and Le Loi in District 1. It’s pretty convenient if you wander around Ben Thanh market. Price is about 40,000k a bowl.
Easy to eat and delicious. Beware that if you are not used to having an empty stomach, you may need to eat again 1-2 hours after the soup. Sup Cua Doanh: 75 Nguyen Thi Minh Khai, District 1. Around 50,000 to 60,000 VND a small bowl
Figure 4 – Súp Cua Sò Điệp – Crab Soup
Noodle Soup – My Tho Style
This shop is small and looks rugged on Tôn Thất Thiệp street in District 1, near Bitexco Tower, but the food is just excellent and not pricey at all for its quality and location.
Figure 5 – Hủ Tiếu Mì Mỹ Tho – Noodle Soup Mỹ Tho
Laairai Restaurant
This one is a bit biased because the owner is my close friend. Nonetheless, the food is really excellent and the ambience is nice. The prices are a bit high, but understandable if you want to be positioned as an upper market eatery place.
Laairai: 98 Nguyen Dinh Chieu, Da Kao Ward, District 1.
Figure 6 – Laairai Restaurant
Bột Chiên – Fried Rice Flour Cakes
It’s a small cart on Su Van Hanh Street, District 10. You can see what the cart looks like in the video below. The food is tasty and affordable at only 25,000 VND for a plate
Figure 7 – Bột Chiên – Fried Rice Flour Cakes
Dumpling
A popular snack here in Vietnam that originates from our annoying neighbor, China. This small cart is located on Co Giang Street in District 1. It doesn’t have a business sign and I forgot to film where it was. But just go to Co Giang Street, near Nguyen Thai Hoc Street and you should see it. Each dumpling costs 4,000 and there is a good variety for you to choose from.
Figure 8 – Há Cảo – Dumpling
Sticky Rice
This snack is not healthy as it has a lot of carb, but boy, does it taste good! I miss it tremendously as you can’t find the authentic version in Nebraska. There are countless shops in Saigon, but I got the below from Minh Phung Street, District 6. Only 20,000 VND for a portion like below
Figure 9 – Xôi Mặn – Sticky Rice
Bún Riêu
Bún Riêu Gánh: 163 Le Thanh Ton, District 1. At the corner of Le Thanh Ton and Nguyen Trung Truc. Price: about 50,000 VND a bowl
Figure 10 – Bún Riêu
Smoothie Phố
This shop is very near and dear to me. It operates from 6pm to midnight 6 days a week. Customers are loyal and love what the shop has to offer: affordable but great smoothie. Don’t take my words for it. Just visit it between 8pm and 10pm and you’ll see a crowd on the pavement and the street. Address: 119 Nguyen Van Cu, District 5.
The perks of living in the States as a Vietnam is that I get to see the differences between the two countries in several aspects. One of them is payments. If contactless and tap-to-pay is more common and popular in the US, QR Codes are much more ubiquitous in Vietnam, at least in the big cities. What you see below is in Ho Chi Minh City, the biggest economic hub in Vietnam. When you venture out to smaller and poorer provinces, things may change significantly.
This is how we paid at a convenience store. The cashier scanned the QR code on a phone to process payments.
In the below clip, we were at a local bakery named Tous Les Jours. You can see different QR Codes for different mobile wallets. Consumers can just scan one and make payments. The nature of the transaction requires immediate confirmation since nobody is going to wait 5′ for a payment to go through.
Even mom-and-pop stores like a sugar cane shop and a photocopy shop below allow payments via QR Codes
A sugar cane shop in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) accepts payments via QR CodesA local photocopy shop in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) accepts payments via QR Codes
Mobile wallets like Momo strive to acquire and retain users. When we paid for our drinks at the sugar cane shop, we got 50% discount out of nowhere even though the transaction amount was only $1.2.
Momo gives users 50% discount on transactions out of nowhere
I recently went back to Vietnam to visit friends and family. This is arguably the most exhausting trip that I have ever taken since I went overseas at 19 years old. I’ll share some of my experiences below that hopefully may be helpful with your upcoming travel. My post is for informational purposes only, so please do your own research.
Read up on travel restrictions and prepare in advance
Like many other countries, Vietnam requires visitors to be at least double-jabbed. If you are vaccinated in the US like me, the square vaccination card should be enough. Visitors must also show a negative PCR test result that has to be taken within 72 hours before arrival. There are many types of Covid tests; therefore, research what is accepted and take an appropriate test. For reference, my test was a Nasopharyngeal Swab taken at Total Wellness in Omaha, Nebraska. PCR tests for travel are pricey, to the tune of $220 each, but if you are insured, you should be covered. Taking a cheap rapid antigen test will save you some money, but since such a test is not usually accepted, you are putting your trip up for more risks. Once again, research on what is accepted by all destinations on your journey and take appropriate actions. Folks often receive their test results digitally, but I recommend that you print them out and have them stamped, if possible.
Trips from the US to Vietnam often include a transit to Japan. I couldn’t finish the check-in process on the United Airlines app. When we got to the Omaha airport, United Airlines told us that we must show a filled quarantine questionnaire. We were spooked. My fiancé flew from Vietnam to the US through Japan and she didn’t have to show that questionnaire. Did something change in between? We frantically checked everything we could about travel restrictions in Japan, but the only thing we could find was this passage from ANA.
Since we were only transiting in Japan and our transit didn’t involve changing airports nor exceed 24 hours, according to ANA itself, we wouldn’t have to show any documents. But the United Airlines staff didn’t listen. She kept asking us for a completed questionnaire which mandates a quarantine address that we clearly do not have. After more than 30 minutes back and forth, she finally let us check in because the boarding time was coming, but implored us to finish the questionnaire before we landed in Japan. Once we got through the security check, I called United Airlines and was told that our interpretation of the situation is correct. Hence, if you are transiting in Japan and your transit doesn’t exceed 24 hours or involve a transfer between airports, you should not have to show any documents.
Transit at Haneda Airport in Japan
Barring any changes in the near future, if you transit at Haneda airport, you are likely to do so at Terminal 3. According to Haneda Airport‘s website, there are 38 stores at Terminal 3. Unfortunately, many of them are “temporarily closed” and some don’t open before 9am. If your flight lands there earlier than 9am, expect to see a lot of closed doors. The remaining open stores include mostly tax-free shops that sell perfumes, liquor, chocolate and some souvenirs. There are a few restaurants but the choices are limited and I couldn’t see any with sushi on the menu. The best option is to use a lounge. We used the ANA Lounge, whose access is worth 6,000 yen or about $50. Guests have unlimited access to a small buffet with good Japanese food. Liquor and wine are available only after 11am. I really enjoyed their soup as the broth was authentically delicious. I had nothing but praises for the staff. Even though they spoke limited English, their customer service was excellent. They brought food to our table and retrieved the empty trays for us. Promptly and unintrusively.
Only the stores with bright light are open. The rest are temporarily closed. You can se how limited the options are
In addition to the buffet, there are also areas where guests can rest, wind down and get some work done in silence. What made the Lounge great for us is the shower. Access to the shower is by appointments only and each appointment is capped at 20 minutes. The shower rooms are spacious with excellent facilities. From the hair dryer, the toilet to the shower itself. If you have a long transit, a shower is just what the doctor orders.
Restaurants that offer Japanese cuisine do not have sushi
Drinks from a vending machine are cheap. A coke costs a bit more than $1. I paid $5 for a bottle of water at Omaha airport
In short, we were fairly disappointed with the stores at Terminal 3 of Haneda Airport. If you have a long transit there, adjust your expectation on what you can actually do. Make sure you check out the Lounges! In my opinion, they are worth the money
Arrival in Vietnam
Vietnam just recently opened its borders after two years of completely being shut off from the world. The border control at Tan Son Nhat airport is strict and tiring. It’s imperative that you keep the boarding pass of the flight to Vietnam. Immigration officers in Vietnam will repeatedly ask for it; which was not there before Covid, if my memory doesn’t fail me. After disembarking from a plane, visitors will have to show that they adhere to the Covid restrictions before getting to the passport control. Proof includes their vaccination status, a negative Covid test that was taken no more than 72 hours before, and a declaration on tokhaiyte.vn. There is Wifi at the airport; therefore, don’t panic if you don’t fill out the declaration in advance. It’s actually better to declare right at the airport because it’s more up to date, but make sure you have digital access to your vaccination card or proof that you recovered from an infection. The lines can be very long, so take this into account when you make travel plans in Vietnam. We landed around 9pm local time and only left the airport 3 hours later.
The lines at Tan Son Nhat Airport
We didn’t have any rapid antigen test upon arrival at Tan Son Nhat airport. Hence, we only had to go through 3 days of self-quarantine at a hotel. We chose the Blue Diamond Luxury Hotel on Thi Sach street. The price for two people for 3 days, including 3 meals/day and a PCR test, was 7 million VND or about $300. The hotel is located in a quiet area of District 1. You are not disturbed by bars or heavy traffic. The food was actually better than I expected. The room was decent enough and the staff was nice. In hindsight, I don’t think that price was unreasonable.
We were told by a few friends and family members that a quarantine was not needed. I am not sure about that. We actually got a call from a local government official asking about our whereabouts and our test result. Being in quarantine is no fun, but I felt good that we followed the rules. We had time to recuperate after a long flight, slept to alleviate the jet lag and brought ourselves some peace of mind for not having to constantly look over our shoulders.
Covid cases in Vietnam have been rising after Lunar New Year. Hence, do yourself a favor and make sure you have hand sanitizers and masks with you at all time. I recommend that you have several masks and one of them is from paper. N95s offer great protection, but they can be hard on the ears after a while. Paper masks will be the break that your ears will desperately need.
Located in Quang Binh Province, Vietnam, Son Doong is one of the world’s largest natural caves and has arguably the largest cave passage by volume. It was first discovered by a local in 1991 before it rose in world wide fame when a group of British cavers did a survey of the cave in 2009. Since then, tourist permits have been issued on a limited basis to preserve the natural and pristine state of the cave. There was some discussion on creating a cable car for tourist purposes, but due to pressure from environmentalists and locals, the plan was scrapped.
Not many people will be lucky enough to access such a wonder. Hence, I am very appreciative of National Geographic for creating an outstanding virtual tour of the cave, bringing it to everyone with Internet around the world. As a Vietnamese, I am very proud of my country and the gifts that Mother Nature gave us. I hope even if you may not afford a trip to Son Doong nor secure a permit, you can still learn a bit about my country or feel more motivated to visit us and see what else we have to offer. I assure you that we have plenty to satisfy your curiosity.
The enormity, beauty, size, sophistication and age (2-5 million years old) of Son Doong makes me awed of Mother Nature and feel small. Grounded. Credit to National Geographic
Brexit has major implications. Whether the net benefits are positive or not remains to be seen, but this new development doesn’t seem to benefit consumers: Mastercard is hiking fees
AirBnb conducted a new survey that said: One in five want their destination to be within driving distance of home. Not a very good sign for airlines
Ok – here's my best explanation of why @RobinhoodApp restricted trading in the short-squeeze stocks.
Spoiler: the story isn't the Ken Griffen called Janet Yellen who instructed DTCC to raise margin on Robinhood to force them to shut down the speculative buying.
What I find is that it is often these kinds of multiple small mispriced insights that overtime compound to form a business which is very defensible and very difficult to replicate. The discovery of those multiple small insights really requires a bottom-up organic idiosyncratic investment process.
AirBnb CEO Brian Chesky had an interview with Bloomberg two days ago. First of all, I think Brian seemed very real and genuine in this interview. Watching him speak didn’t give me a sense that he was a robot reading script or a politician giving all kinds of lip services or false hope. For example, he admitted to being unfocused in the past, working on too many things at AirBnb at the same time. He also publicly committed to publishing data on diversity at AirBnb one year from now. That kind of genuineness and down-to-Earth attitude are refreshing to see. He talked about his commitment to diversity & equality, how he thinks about IPO this year, what mistake he made while running AirBnb, Online Experience, how Covid-19 changed travel behavior and so on. But I will only discuss two topics as follows:
How Covid-19 changed travel
While many people said that travel pre-Covid as we knew it is forever gone and we will never see it again, I am much less certain on that. Humans are quick to forget. Once we have the vaccine or have this virus under control, no matter how many years that will take, I think we can get back to where we were travel-behavior-wise. Things tend to be cyclical, you know. Nonetheless, Brian talked about what he has seen in terms of behavioral changes of travelers:
Business travel will take a lot longer to recover
EU has recovered solidly from the pandemic. Asia started the recovery path. Latin America hasn’t recovered much. He said that the US “has been really really strong” and it “has seen a temporary recovery”. I am not quite sure how to think about it. The US has repeatedly seen a new high on the number of cases in a day for quite a while now. Even if a portion of the population traveled, what would that do to the full recovery? Would take delay the recovery much longer?
Less interest in travel to urban areas with dense population and in cross-border travel
Travel will be more local
For the foreseeable future, there will be major changes in how businesses operate in the tourism industry. Attractions will have to take into account social distancing when designing tours. Travel agencies will have to arrange transportation for small groups only and avoid trips to crowded places. Hotels or AirBnb hosts will have to increase the hygiene level and how to communicate that to travelers.
If you look at countries whose tourism plays a huge part in the overall economy such as France or Italy, they were decimated by the pandemic. However, they have recovered since and started to take on tourists. The picture is very different for the US. Not only does nobody want to travel here at this time, unless they absolutely have to, but the people living here are now banned from visiting Europe. The lack of commitment to take on short-term losses for future prospects and, by extension, the absolutely atrocious handling of this pandemic are setting this country back months in recovery and perhaps even longer for the US tourism industry.
Online Experiences
AirBnb launched Online Experiences in April 2020 due to the pandemic. The service allows hosts to craft a unique experience online for a small group of guests. After reservations are confirmed, guests receive a Zoom invitation through which they can live participate in the Experience. For instance, you can book to learn how to cook with this Michelin chef from Italy in a live stream session along with 9 other people around the globe without leaving your home. All you need to do is to make a reservation, prepare ingredients beforehand and join the Zoom session.
Brian Chesky said that it is the fastest growing product of AirBnb, even though he didn’t specify whether it’s the fastest growing product ever or it’s just during the pandemic. He did reveal that the service has had 400 Experiences listed so far and generated $1 million in bookings.
AirBnb is quick to improvise and pivot during this pandemic that severely affects travel. I can see some value in this service. Firstly, for folks who feel lonely during this crisis (and there are a lot of them), this is a great and inexpensive way to meet new people and learn something useful without enduring more risks. The live stream format is key because if this were an on-demand video clip like what we have with streamers like Netflix, it wouldn’t work. There needs to be a real and tailored human interaction. That’s why I think it makes sense to limit the number of participants to maximize the interaction with each person.
Secondly, take Vietnam as an example. Our borders have been closed for months. Hosts can take advantage of this opportunity to offer local tours or experiences and gain revenue that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.
Regarding the future prospect of this service, I am not convinced yet. Covid-19 necessitates online interaction. However, when this blows over, though it may take some time, how much will people still prefer online interaction and how much time will they have for these experiences? There are many other services that can offer similar online lessons. Once people are free to leave home, they no longer need some strangers on the Internet to bond with to alleviate the loneliness as there are countless distractions. I don’t have any data, but that $1 million bookings in 3 months globally seems a bit soft. Furthermore, the live stream nature and the small group requirement of this service don’t necessarily let host scale their revenue. They are constrained by their time, being the presenter physically and the number of participants. Hence, I suspect that revenue from Online Experiences may just shift to Experiences post-Covid.
In sum, it will be interesting to see what the future holds for the tourism industry and AirBnb, in particular. The pandemic threw its plan to go public in the trash bin and significantly altered its business. If you are interested in the company, have a listen to Brian’s talk. Once again, I really like his down-to-Earth tone and genuineness.
I came across arguably the best promotional video about my country I have ever seen. The video was excellently filmed and edited to capture some of the best that my country can offer. Hope you will enjoy it as much as I did. Thanks a lot to Pau Garcia for the great video.
Trang An is where the movie Kong was shot. I had long been interested in seeing the place in person, but could only do so this year. Below is my experience in this largely untouched and breathtakingly beautiful place
I had limited time left in Vietnam. So I only did a day trip to Ninh Binh which could only allow me to visit Dance Cave and Trang An. If you want to visit Bai Dinh and Tam Coc, 2 days will be a better choice.
I took a limousine to Ninh Binh and a train back to Hanoi. The limousine ride was comfortable and the trip took 1.5 hours. If you intend to ride a limousine back to Hanoi, it’s highly recommended that you make a reservation in advance. My friend and I couldn’t find any available seats on our way back so we decided to go by train. A limousine seat for one person on way is around 130,000 VND.
The train takes around 2 hours and 15 minutes from the gas station in Ninh Binh to Hanoi, a bit longer than a limousine ride. The ticket is more or less at the same price. The train wasn’t the best in my opinion, but it did the job.
Dance Cave
The attraction is a cave called Dance. However, the main point is the 400-something-step climb to a small mountain that stands next the cave. It’s highly recommended that you go there early in the morning to avoid the heat, wear sports clothes for easy movement and bring water!
Trang An
Our next stop was Trang An. If you are not with a tour operator, you can go from the cave to Trang An by taxi. It cost us 80,000 VND. Do bargain to avoid being ripped off.
Trang An is a marvelous place. It looks surreal and untouched. Just like Halong Bay, Trang An is proof of how remarkable Mother Nature is with her creativity and patience to produce such a beautiful painting over thousands of years.
A boat ride lasts 3 hours and costs around 200,000 VND per person. There are three different routes to experience Trang An. Route #3 is the latest one. The construction for Kong movie was removed in September 2019. So don’t expect to see any of it.
I learned from the trip that local farmers were allowed by the government to carry passengers on boats once every two days in addition to their farming work. They are paid a meager amount of 200,000 VND for their ride, a ridiculous sum for 3 hours of physical work and some more idly waiting time. As a consequence, it’s expected that passengers tip the women around 50,000 VND per person.
The start of Route #3 in Trang AnBoat rides in Trang AnMagnificent GreenSpace opening upThe entrance to a 1km-long caveNot a friendly cave to tall peopleA typical rural house in the pastEntrance to a pagoda in the middle of Trang AnRight at the exit of another cave, to the eagle-shaped moutainEagle!Ninh Binh Train Station
My photos don’t do Ninh Binh enough justice, not even close. I urge that you visit the place soon as it is still in an excellent shape with little human impact. To feel the might of nature and the beauty that it brings. To feel humbled. To feel alive. I never got enough of that green color on top of the grey of the rocks.
Minh Quang Duong 