There is no shortage of companies that will sell a travel agent a Vietnam tour.
What is harder to find — and what most boutique agencies eventually realise they need — is a ground partner who operates the way you do. One who thinks the same way about slow travel, about not overloading an itinerary, about the difference between a guide who narrates facts and one who tells stories. One who is reachable, accountable, and genuinely invested in whether your client comes home transformed or just tired.
That is what Jem Travel is built to be.
Jem Travel is a licensed boutique Destination Management Company (DMC) based in Hanoi, Vietnam, specialising exclusively in tailor-made travel across Indochina — Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos.
We are a B2B operation. We do not sell directly to travelers. Everything we do is in service of the travel agents and tour operators we partner with — so that you can sell Indochina with full confidence that there is a competent, reachable team on the ground delivering exactly what you promised.
We hold International Tour Operator Licence No. 01-2615/2024/CDLQGVN-GP LHQT, issued by the Vietnam National Authority of Tourism. We are based in Hanoi and have been operating since March 2024.
Our founder and CEO is Gemma Nguyen — a native Vietnamese speaker with a Bachelor’s degree in Italian Language and Culture from Hanoi University and a Master’s in Tourism Management from the University of Calabria, Italy. She has spent more than a decade designing itineraries for European travelers across Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. The team she has built around her reflects the same philosophy: deep local knowledge, European communication standards, and a genuine commitment to quality over volume.
Boutique is a word that has been used so often in travel marketing that it has almost stopped meaning anything. So let us be specific about what it means at Jem Travel.
We work with a small number of agent partners. Not hundreds. We are selective — and deliberately so. The agencies we work with are ones that curate their own itineraries, care deeply about the traveler experience, and want a ground partner who will treat each booking as if their own reputation depends on it. Because ours does.
We do not run fixed-departure groups. Every itinerary we design is built from scratch for a specific client, with a specific pace, specific interests, and specific constraints. There is no “Vietnam 12-day standard” that we slot people into.
We pace itineraries the way good agents do. Two meaningful experiences done well, every day — not five rushed ones. Your client should feel that they lived in Vietnam for two weeks, not that they survived a checklist. That means building in time to sit with a coffee on a Hanoi street corner, to wander Hội An’s back lanes after the day-trippers have left, to watch the mist lift over rice terraces in Sapa without checking the time.
We select accommodation for character, not category. We work with boutique properties across all price points — from family-run ecolodges like Chapa Farmstay in Sapa and Laxsik Ecolodge to five-star properties like Jade Hill in Sapa, Bel Marina in Hội An, and Tam Coc Garden in Ninh Bình. What all of them share is a reason to be there beyond square footage.
We brief our guides as storytellers, not schedulers. The difference between a guide who says “this temple was built in 1672” and one who can explain what 1672 felt like in this city, what the Emperor was trying to say with this architecture, and why the family who lives next door has been making incense for eleven generations — that difference is the entire experience, for a certain kind of traveler.
We partner with boutique travel agencies and independent tour operators who share a specific set of values: quality over quantity, depth over breadth, and genuine care for the traveler’s experience rather than simply moving them through a schedule.
Our existing partners are primarily based in Italy, where we have an established network of boutique agencies. We are actively expanding our partnerships with Nordic agents — from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Finland — who we find to be a natural fit for the kind of travel we design. Nordic travelers tend to research carefully, travel for longer periods, want authentic encounters rather than scripted performances, and are willing to pay for quality when they can see what they are paying for. That profile matches exactly the kind of itinerary we are best at building.
We are not the right partner for high-volume operators running coach tours or fixed-departure packages. We are the right partner for the agent who has a client that says: “I want to go to Vietnam, but not the way everyone else goes.”
Jem Travel manages ground operations across the full Indochina region:
Vietnam — from Hanoi and the northern highlands (Ha Long Bay, Ninh Bình, Sapa, Ha Giang) through the Imperial cities of Central Vietnam (Huế, Hội An, Đà Nẵng) to the Mekong Delta, Phú Quốc, and Côn Đảo in the south.
Cambodia — Siem Reap and the Angkor complex (the largest religious monument in the world), Phnom Penh, Battambang, and the southern coast.
Laos — Luang Prabang (UNESCO World Heritage), Vang Vieng, Vientiane, the Plain of Jars, Si Phan Don (4,000 Islands), and the Bolaven Plateau.
We also design multi-country circuits — the most requested of which is a Vietnam-to-Cambodia journey along the Mekong River, a route that cannot be replicated from a booking platform and rewards the kind of slow, sequential travel that lets a place reveal itself gradually rather than all at once.
When you work with Jem Travel, you send us a brief and we return a proposal. From the moment your client arrives in-country to the moment they board their departure flight, we manage:
What we do not do: take margin on international flights, charge hidden fees, or send you a template when you asked for a proposal.
The numbers from 2025 and early 2026 are worth understanding if you are building a Vietnam portfolio. Vietnam welcomed nearly 21.2 million international visitors in 2025 — up more than 20% from 2024 and the highest level ever recorded. While global international arrivals grew by roughly 5%, Vietnam grew at four times that rate.
Nordic source markets specifically are accelerating. In Q1 2026, arrivals from Norway were up 26% and Sweden up 27.5% compared to the same period a year earlier. In the first five months of 2025, Denmark posted growth of 10.9%, Sweden 15.1%, and Norway 14.3% — all driven in large part by Vietnam’s extended visa-free entry policy, which allows Nordic passport holders to enter without a visa for up to 45 days.
This is a structural shift, not a one-season spike. Airlines are adding European routes. Boutique properties are being built to meet demand from travellers who want something more considered than a beach resort. The window for Nordic agents to establish themselves as Vietnam specialists — before the market becomes as crowded as Thailand — is open now, and probably not for long.
We keep it simple, because complexity in the process means complexity in the trip.
Step one: You send us a brief — travel dates, budget range (per person, land-only), client profile, interests, and any non-negotiables. The more specific, the better; but we can work with a starting point.
Step two: We return a detailed proposal within 48 hours — named hotels, named experiences, a day-by-day structure, and a clear cost breakdown. Not a template. An actual proposal for your actual client.
Step three: We refine together. Most itineraries go through one or two rounds of revision before the client signs off. We are responsive through WhatsApp, email, or video call — whatever works for you.
Step four: Your client travels. We handle everything on the ground. You receive regular updates if you want them, and a post-tour report when it is done.
There are no minimum booking volumes, no annual fees, and no exclusivity requirements. We work with agents who share our values — and we earn the next booking by doing the last one well.
Do you work with independent agents as well as agencies? Yes. Some of our best partnerships are with individual agents who operate independently but have a clearly defined client base. What matters is the quality of the client brief and the shared commitment to a certain kind of travel — not the size of the company.
What is the minimum group size you work with? One. A solo traveler deserves the same quality of ground support as a group of fifteen. We design for private travel as a default — there are no shared coaches, no strangers at the dinner table.
How far in advance should I contact you? For tailor-made bookings, six to eight weeks before travel gives us the best options. For peak season travel — December through February in the north, or March through May in the south — ten to twelve weeks is better, particularly for boutique accommodation with limited availability.
Do you provide guides who speak Scandinavian languages? English-speaking guides are our standard, and the quality is high — we recruit for cultural knowledge and communication skill, not just language fluency. For clients who prefer to communicate in Swedish, Norwegian, or Danish, we can arrange specialist guides with advance notice, though availability varies by destination.
Can the itinerary be changed after the trip has started? Yes — and this is one of the things we are most deliberate about. Flexibility during the trip is a core part of how we operate. If your client wants to stay an extra day in Hội An, or decides they would rather spend a morning on the river than visit a third temple, we make that work without drama.
If you are a Nordic travel agent building a Vietnam or Indochina portfolio and you want a ground partner who operates the way you do, we would like to hear from you.
Send a brief to gemma@jemtravel.asia, or reach us directly on WhatsApp at +84 973692412. We will come back with a proposal, not a brochure.
Jem Travel — A Boutique DMC in Indochina. Licensed International Tour Operator, Vietnam · Licence No. 01-2615/2024/CDLQGVN-GP LHQT Founded Hanoi, March 2024 · jemtravel.asia
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2026
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31/07/2026
Family Travel — Infants & Young Children Vietnam with a Baby Under 1: What Jem Travel Does Differently Written by the team at Jem Travel — a licensed boutique DMC based in Hanoi, Vietnam (International Tour Operator Licence No. 01-2615/2024/CDLQGVN-GP LHQT). We have guided FIT families through Vietnam with infants as young as six months […]
