Travel agency Nam Ho explores new businesses
Logistics and warehousing, e-commerce, hawker food delivery among the ventures
Singapore
WHEN the Covid-19 pandemic made it next to impossible for foreign tourists to visit Singapore, many tour agencies threw their energy into conceptualising local tours to attract residents now cooped up on the island.
Nam Ho Travel put together some local tour offerings too, but the group's leaders had even bigger ideas in mind.
Over the past year, it has rolled out a range of other business ventures that have enabled it to reduce cash burn and keep the group afloat.
These include a logistics and warehousing business, business-to-business (B2B) and business-to-consumer (B2C) e-commerce, hawker food delivery services and school bus transport.
Altogether, revenue from these businesses currently covers 60 to 70 per cent of business costs across the group, and it is on its way to breaking even by the end of this year or early next year, said Nam Ho Travel director Marshall Ooi.
If the company had relied solely on domestic tourism for survival, it would have been "tough to sustain" the business over the past year, he said.
"What we are getting are mainly people gathered by the RCs (residents' committees). They are reaching out to the senior crowds and gathering them by groups. Walk-ins, people who are bored and ask what tours we have - there are fewer of such customers."
Mr Ooi, who heads the group's outbound travel segment, handles the e-commerce sites as well as the food delivery service with another business partner.
He shared that the B2C site, Buy Beyond Borders, has garnered almost S$400,000 in sales since it was set up in August 2020.
Integration with popular e-commerce sites such as Shopee, Qoo10 and Lazada has helped boost direct consumer sales, while the original website serves sub-agents who organise group buys and receive a commission on the sales.
The Just Cheetah food delivery business connects hawkers in Chinatown with blue-collar workers in Tuas and Jurong Island.
This targeted strategy, as well as the use of self-heating pots activated by plain water to ensure the food is served piping hot despite the distance travelled, has generated small but steady business volumes for Just Cheetah, even as other small food delivery outfits have struggled during this time.
Mr Ooi plans to grow the business further by incorporating a way for customers to play games and watch advertisements to earn credits for their next meal.
Meanwhile, Mahesh Pawanaskar, co-founder and director of the group's inbound travel business Nam Ho DMC, is in charge of the burgeoning Nam Ho Logistics arm and school bus service.
Over the past year, Nam Ho Logistics has built up assets including a 47,000 square foot warehouse serving companies in the pharmaceutical, animal feed, grocery, furniture and electronics industries, and a fleet of 13 trucks and prime movers to transport goods.
Passenger vans normally used for tours around Singapore have been pressed into service for last-mile deliveries and school transport for an international school.
Mr Pawanaskar is proud that his drivers' excellent customer service skills have so impressed the school that the business won the contract for the next academic year as well.
Nam Ho DMC has been able to retain all its employees to work in these logistics and transport ventures, and even hired a few more drivers when the fleet expanded.
"By pivoting, we are able to maintain our employees and have that minimum decent salary that allows them to stay away from financial stress," said Mr Pawanaskar.
The business partners acknowledged that revenues are far below what the travel business used to bring in, but Mr Ooi is still cheered by the results of the ventures.
"We have not found the winning formula and it's all trial and error while we modify things to suit what is best (for us) and what the market can accept. But it has been much better, compared to where we first began," he said."
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