With a little luck, by early 2010, Lee Sheridan believes his company, Teamworkz Consulting, the whl.travel local partner in Laos, will have processed US$1 million worth of travel bookings through three Laos destination websites (Luang Prabang, Vang Vieng and Vientiane). Perhaps even more impressive than the gross numbers is the volume it represents: As of 10 October 2009, with completed bookings totalling almost US$800,000 and an average transaction valued at a few pennies more than US$115, that’s nearly 7000 bookings in just four years.

Young novice monks fix the temple's boat prior to the annual Wat Xieng Thong Festival in Luang Prabang, Laos (by Stanislas Fradelizi)

“Along with this, the three websites in Laos have already surpassed more than 100,000 unique visitors this year,” Sheridan enthused. “The Luang Prabang site alone has received over 60,000 unique visitors this year so far, and with our high season just starting, we may be able to reach 100,000 unique visitors for this one site in 2009.”

All in all, that’s not bad at all for a young company in an off-the-beaten-path nation notable for its least developed country status.

Many Twists and Turns

While there’s no contesting Sheridan’s golden touch today in Lao tourism, it was by no means a given that he should end where he is.

“My studies were in human geography,” confessed Sheridan. “There was nothing specifically on tourism, but I studied a lot on Third World development in Southeast Asia. I was interested in tourism and I did my thesis on that in Koh Pha Ngan. After university I took a year out and spent a lot of time on Thai beaches. Then I headed up to Laos on a visa run, to extend my Thai visa. I got to a town called Vang Vieng and basically, I’m not entirely sure how, I got a job as a kayaking guide on the river there. I had never done kayaking before and never been a guide before, but I ended up working with them for about four months.”

A statue inside the grounds of Wat Impeng Temple, Vientiane, Laos (courtesy of Tari Bowling)

Now, almost a decade later and a few twists and turns further down the river of life, he’s still in Laos. And, judging by his enthusiasm for the country and the energy he puts into helping build the kind of national tourism industry that will help keep it beautiful, he must love it.

Tapping the whl.travel Vein

Sheridan found his way into the whl.travel fold in mid 2005 through a website he started called mekongspirit.com. “At the time there were three Laos sites being managed by the local Hotel and Restaurant Association, which weren’t performing particularly well. They were averaging one booking a day in total from the three sites and complaining that this was too much work for them.”

Sheridan started operation of these sites in November 2005 as the local partner of whl.travel. “It was very slow at the start.” The sites were averaging one or two bookings a day, but whl.travel was still in its infancy and “I wasn’t putting enough resources into being an local partner as I should have at the time,” Sheridan recalled.

“The turn-around came with the development of whl.travel as an organization, which encouraged me to invest a lot more in the whl.travel side of things. It’s now the main part of my company. Most of my resources and my staff are working on being the whl.travel partner, whereas at the start it was only a small aspect of what I was trying to do. Now we’re getting a rough average of between 15 and 20 bookings a day and we perform pretty well in search engines – we’re basically number one for Laos sites in Google.”

A Broad Portfolio

Despite Sheridan’s focus on travel bookings through whl.travel, his Teamworkz work stretches into tourism consulting in sustainable tourism. “I believe that responsible tourism is something we need to promote, something good. But finding the right way to push this or develop it is another matter altogether. It’s going to take time.”

A young boy watches from the banks of the Nam Song River in Vang Vieng as travellers kayak past (by Stanislas Fradelizi)

Sheridan hasn’t been halting in his efforts to do the right thing. From 2006 to mid-2008, he worked for a project called Stay Another Day, which started off in Siem Reap (Cambodia) as something called Things to Do Beside the Temples. “The whole idea was to get people to stay a bit longer, realise that there was more to do than just Angkor Wat. It was more about experiential travel, connecting with different organizations that would not necessarily normally be involved in tourism – some of the local development organizations and NGOs that would benefit from increased exposure, additional revenue sources through tourism. From there we expanded this into Laos. Luang Prabang was in a similar situation at the time, where a lot of people just went to the temples. It proved very successful, so we expanded it across Laos and across Cambodia and introduced it to Vietnam as well.”

Since then, Sheridan has worked on a number of other projects to develop capacity, long-term tourism development strategies, long-term marketing strategies and even some destination development work.

One recent project is with the Enterprise Challenge Fund (ECF), a part of AusAid that focuses on supporting the private sector. “I applied for a grant from the ECF to expand my whl.travel operations in Laos, which would include covering three new provinces as well as building hotel websites for each and every one of the hotels I work with in Laos.”

Yet another undertaking is in cooperation with Ecotourism Laos, which recently won Planeta’s Ecotourism Spotlight Award for the third consecutive year. “Ecotourismlaos.com has also just signed an affiliate deal with us and are now selling all the accommodation providers we work with in Laos,” reported Sheridan.

Lee Sheridan (centre) and two Teamworkz teammates, Anne and Mouk, accept their R&R reward

Reward and Recognition

Sheridan’s dynamism has not gone unnoticed by the whl.travel network. At the July 2009 whl.travel Asia-Pacific Regional conference, Teamworkz Consulting was officially announced as the whl.travel Franchisee of the Year 2008-2009, winner of a Reward and Recognition program for its work in Vientiane, Laos.

“I like this program a lot!” admitted Sheridan. “Personally, I’m an extremely competitive person, so as soon as they bring out anything with lead tables in it, I want to be the top of it. Anything I do I’m extremely competitive.”

Teamworkz, which could just as easily have earned its laurels for its labours in Luang Prabang and Vang Vieng, both also in Laos, also owns and operates five other sites in Laos and seven in Thailand.

“Thailand is huge potential,” said Sheridan. “The number of visitors and number of destinations is huge, but there’s also a lot of competition. In Laos, I’m very lucky. I’m one of the very few people who can offer any variety of hotels. I’ve managed to secure the marketplace. But in Thailand I’m competing with a lot bigger players who’ve been established for a lot longer. It’s something that’s going to take a lot of time.”

Tags: awards, ecotourism, Ethan Gelber, Franchisee of the Year, Laos, Lee Sheridan, Mekong, responsible organisations, responsible tourism, responsible travel, responsible travel news, sustainable tourism, Teamworkz Consulting, Thailand

This entry was posted on Monday, October 12th, 2009 at 3:42 pm and is filed under Laos, Thailand, WHL Group news, responsible travel, responsible travel news.