■ HOMEGROWN BPO VENTURES INTO TRAVEL SERVICES
A 10-year-old business process outsourcing company that has its headquarters in the Cebu IT Park has decided to expand to travel services. Azpired, Inc. General Manager and COO Almira Absin said they began last year as an in-house service to assist some 1,500 employees, many of whom had a great interest in and were willing to spend on travel. This year, however, Azpired Travel has decided to accept individual and corporate bookings from outside the company. It opened a 750-square-meter office in Park Centrale, also in the Cebu IT Park. According to the World Economic Forum’s “Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2015,” a combination of budget airline services and the “booming outsourcing sector” pushed up Filipinos’ travel expenditures by 30 percent from 2013 to 2014.
Company began by offering travel services and packages to its own employees, but decided to take in individual and corporate clients from outside the firm as well
Seeing opportunities in the appetite for travel of business process outsourcing ( BPO) workers, a homegrown outsourcing company has expanded to becoming a travel agency.
Azpired, Inc., a 10-year- old BPO firm with headquarters in Cebu IT Park, launched yesterday Azpire Travel located on the 18th floor of Park Centrale, also in Cebu IT Park.
“We started Azpire Travel because people travel a lot. Even when they ( people) are not yet done travelling, they are already thinking of their next destination,” said Almira Absin, the company’s general manager.
With 1,500 BPO employees, Absin saw how enthusiastic her people were about travel, both to domestic and international destinations. She also sends some of her employees to the US for official business.
Raring to travel
Observing this high travel activity in the workforce, Absin decided to open a travel agency and soft- launched the 750- square- meter office in the last quarter of 2016 primarily to serve its employees, who can pay for trips through salary deductions.
According to Absin, destinations like Palawan, South Korea and Hong Kong are some of the most attractive destinations to her employees.
This year, the company has attracted corporate clients, and has started accepting individual client reservations from outside the company.
Aside from ticketing and hotel reservations, Azpire Travel offers tour packages to Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Japan, Korea, US, and various destinations in Europe, and accepts passport registration and renewal service as well as visa processing.
According to the World Economic Forum’s “Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report 2015,” total expenditures by Filipinos on travel increased by 30 percent between 2013 and 2014. The report also states that “budget airlines and the booming outsourcing sector have enabled millions of newly middle- class Filipinos to become tourists in their own country.”