Business & Industry in Vietnam - 12 Days

Daily Itinerary

 Day 1 & Day 2 – Travel to Vietnam

Today you'll start your Vietnam adventure to make unforgettable memories with your group. Upon arrival you'll meet with your Tour Manager and start your journey. 

Day 3 – Ho Chi Minh City Tour and University Visit

After breakfast, you will have a program orientation. This will be followed by a walking tour of Ho Chi Minh City (a.k.a. Saigon) to familiarize yourself with the city highlights such as the Central Post Office, Saigon Notre Dame, the Opera House, and the Hotel de Ville. You will learn more about the city history by visiting the Reunification Palace. You will have a welcome lunch together before taking a drive to a local university for a visit.

Day 4 – Business and Industry Visits

Today you will visit businesses (multinational and domestic) and factories in and around Ho Chi Minh City.

Day 5 – Ho Chi Minh to Cu Chi Tunnels

In the morning, you will take an hour-and-a-half drive outside of the bustling city, passing the vast green rice fields and seemingly endless rubber tree plantations, to the site of the Cu Chi Tunnels. The tunnels were the site of intense guerrilla fighting techniques used by North Vietnam army soldiers to fight against the Southern Vietnam government and US troops. The system of tunnels is over 200 km long but only half a meter wide. After watching a documentary movie made by Cu Chi Communist members and learning about the tunnels from a miniature model, you will take a guided walk into the site where even some crawling will be necessary!

In the afternoon, you will visit a rubber plantation where local people are collecting rubber latex from rubber trees. You will further understand this industry with a visit to a local factory to see how it is processed for export. Rubber is one of the key agricultural exports of Vietnam. You will return to Ho Chi Minh City later in the afternoon.

Day 6 – Binh Duong Pottery Production

You will take an hour long drive to the Binh Duong province which specializes in pottery production. You will visit a famous factory that exports its products to many countries around the world. After a tour around the workshops you will meet a company representative and learn about the full range of aspects of the business: their material management, skillful worker recruitment, logistics, marketing, their USP (unique selling proposition), as well as the heritage and culture of traditional Vietnamese pottery.

Then you will visit a wood processing factory where you will tour the factory and meet with a company representative to learn more about the industry in general. In 2014, Vietnam was the top country in Southeast Asia and one of the top ten around the world for wood products. While the export of raw timber was banned in 1992, the sale of wood products remains one of the significant contributors to the Vietnamese GDP.

Day 7 – Mekong River Delta Industry Visits

For today's adventure, you will take an hour and a half drive to the Mekong River Delta, watching the shifting green colors of rice paddies stretching to the horizon. Once you arrive at the Mekong River you will board a boat and visit a variety of local cottage industries. You will see how the local people earn their livings with jobs in fisheries, growing tropical fruit, and making candy. You will also get a chance to enjoy their traditional music, take a walk around local gardens, and ride in your boat through the maze of canals. For lunch you will get to taste the local delicacies beside the canal. After lunch you will visit a factory farm that raises basa catfish, mainly for export as fillets to the U.S. 

Day 8 – Bao Loc - Tea and Silk Production

To start the day, drive from sea level up to the hills of Bao Loc town, passing many rubber tree plantations, cashew nut plantations and volcanic craters. Due to the cool weather and abundant rainfall at this altitude (700 meters or 2300 feet), tea has long been a specialty of this land. You will visit tea plantations and talk to the tea collectors before heading to the factory. At the factory you will hear the representative showing how they collect the leaves, their techniques, their markets, etc. Tea is not one of the largest contributors to the Vietnamese GDP, but it is still the sixth largest tea exporter in the world. In the afternoon you will visit a silk worm factory and learn about the traditional practice of making silk clothing, as well as the modern elements of the business. 

Day 9 – Bao Loc to Da Lat

After checking out of your hotel, you will climb to an elevation of about 1500 meters (more than 4900 feet), passing beautiful hills and passes, villages and plantations. You will arrive in Da Lat which was the hill station of the French government during the Indochina wartime. You will visit the Da Lat wine factory, where grapes from surrounding plantation are processed and imported wine is also bottled for the local market. You will enjoy the grape gardens, taste some wine and hear the successful stories of the biggest brand of wine in Vietnam. Da Lat is now the honeymoon city of Vietnamese, not only due to its beauty and romantic surroundings, but also thanks to its cool weather and flower production. You will visit a coffee plantation where you will learn about the unique coffee made from civet-cat dung. Overnight at a hotel in Da Lat.

Day 10 – Da Lat to Mui Ne

Today you will travel to the beach with a stop at a cog railway station to see the special toothed rail rack developed for traveling steep grade railways. Once you reach the beach you will check in to your rooms at the resort hotel and have some time to relax. In the afternoon you will have a meeting with the resort manager to learn about the tourism industry in Vietnam and, in particular, how they attract their target clients.

Day 11 – Mui Ne to Ho Chi Minh City

After a morning swim, you will check out of your hotel. Before leaving Mui Ne you will visit a fish sauce factory. You will drive four hours back to Ho Chi Minh City where you will and have some free time.

 Day 12 –Departure from Ho Chi Minh City

Today your Vietnam adventure will come to an end as you journey back home with your group.