Turning overseas agencies into a second route to market

The challenge

The direct-to-consumer side of the business was already working, through organic content and paid media. The larger opportunity sat somewhere else. International travel agencies already had customers who wanted to visit Vietnam, but those agencies did not necessarily have the local knowledge, the supplier relationships or the operational presence on the ground to deliver the Vietnam part of the trip well.

The commercial logic is straightforward. One consumer booking creates revenue once. One strong relationship with an overseas agency can create repeat bookings for years. The problem is that travel agencies receive constant supplier approaches, so mass outreach would not have produced durable partnerships. This needed relationships, not a list.

The approach

1. Map the agencies worth a relationship

   Caption mapped relevant travel agencies and B2B travel businesses internationally rather than working one country, because the opportunity existed wherever English-speaking agencies were selling or considering Vietnam. Keeping the market broad rather than artificially narrow was a deliberate choice.

2. Reach the person who can approve a supplier

   Outreach targeted founders, owners, managing directors and other senior decision-makers, the people who can actually approve or shape a supplier partnership, rather than whoever answers a general enquiry inbox.

3. Sell the local partner, not the tour

   The proposition was never “buy a Vietnam tour”. It was that Few Days Halong could help an overseas agency design and deliver the Vietnam portion of its own customer’s journey, with genuine local support behind it: itinerary design, accommodation, Ha Long and Lan Ha Bay cruises, private transport and domestic logistics, tours and experiences, and someone on the ground when a traveller needs one.

4. Open doors that can repeat

   Conversations explored how each agency currently handled Vietnam and where a trusted local partner would improve the guest experience or simplify delivery. The aim throughout was a relationship capable of sending bookings for years, not a single transaction.

The results

• 12+ qualified B2B meetings per month on average.
• Meetings and relationships with founders, owners and senior decision-makers at international travel agencies.
• 117% increase in revenue and sales attributed to the growth of B2B partnerships.
• A repeatable international partner channel running alongside the existing organic and paid-media channels.
• Long-term agency relationships capable of generating repeat bookings rather than one-off consumer sales.

Why it worked

Few Days Halong already had a healthy consumer engine. What Caption built was structurally different: a partner channel capable of sending bookings directly into the business, so growth no longer depended only on winning each individual traveller through paid media, content or referral. A single successful agency partnership can generate many customers, which changes the value of one outbound relationship entirely.

We were already performing strongly on the B2C side of the business, but B2B was a channel we really wanted to unlock. We didn’t necessarily have the in-house expertise, language or approach to go after it properly.

Caption came in and completely transformed that side of the business. They helped us build relationships with agencies globally, opening conversations and opportunities that we simply weren’t reaching before.

The speed to results was incredible, but more importantly, the quality of the relationships they’ve helped us build has been game-changing for the business. We genuinely couldn’t thank the team enough and would highly recommend Caption to any company looking to build or accelerate their B2B sales channel.