TUBUDD is one of the first travel tech startups in Vietnam to adopt a model that connects travelers with locals — a highly regarded approach amid the growing trend of personalized experiences and sustainable tourism. It all began with a simple yet deeply human-centered idea: “Travel like a local.” Founded in 2017, TUBUDD set out to address the limitations of traditional tourism, where packaged tours often lack flexibility, cultural depth, and adaptability to individual needs.
From a technological perspective, TUBUDD operates as a real-time networking platform that allows travelers to select and book appointments with “Local Buddies” — local individuals who are well-versed in the language, culture, and customs of their region. Users can filter the list of buddies by region, skills, and language. The founding team developed a recommendation algorithm based on user behavior, integrated secure payment modules, post-trip service review systems, and intelligent scheduling tools for both travelers and buddies.
What sets TUBUDD apart is its continuous feature expansion while staying true to its core philosophy of personalized travel. Moving beyond leisure tourism, TUBUDD has introduced services like “Business Assistant,” which supports business travelers by providing local assistants for interpretation, meeting coordination, and on-site administrative tasks; and “Health Buddy,” which accompanies foreigners visiting Vietnam for medical purposes, helping them navigate language and cultural barriers in healthcare settings. These services build on the existing core platform but are repackaged for different contexts — demonstrating the product’s vertical scalability.
Unlike traditional tourism solutions that focus primarily on selling package tours or hotel bookings, TUBUDD distinguishes itself through its human-centric approach. Instead of emphasizing destinations, this startup prioritizes experiences and local guides — enabling travelers to live like locals rather than just sightsee. Compared to international platforms, TUBUDD holds a competitive advantage through its deep understanding of the Vietnamese market and its ability to adapt flexibly to different cultural regions.
Throughout its development journey, TUBUDD has reached several key milestones: placing in the top 10 at Pitch@Palace Vietnam 2018 (an initiative organized by the British Royal Family), being named one of the top 30 startups at RISE Hong Kong 2018, winning second prize in the Vietnam Smart Tourism Startup Contest hosted by the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism in 2019, and becoming a finalist at VietChallenge in Boston. Most recently, at TECHFEST Vietnam 2024, TUBUDD won third prize nationally, once again affirming the model’s potential for expansion both domestically and internationally. These achievements not only signal recognition from the startup ecosystem but also open doors to strategic investors, industry experts in tourism and technology, and various government support programs.
Developing technology doesn’t always require complex systems or racing toward AI; more importantly, it means truly understanding user problems and crafting simple, scalable, and sustainable solutions. Additionally, the founding team demonstrates an open mindset in business modeling, showing a readiness to expand services based on the core platform whenever new user needs arise — rather than sticking rigidly to a fixed direction. TUBUDD’s journey is a compelling example of how investing in people, enabling local communities to participate in the value chain, and continuously refining products based on real-world feedback are key to building a sustainable travel startup, even with limited initial resources.
