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The Khiri Travel story is one of
passion for the region.

A Journey Down Memory Lane

The Origins

Khiri’s founder, Willem Niemeijer, caught the travel bug from an early age on by solo cycling adventures through Europe. When he was twenty, his first flight was on Garuda to Jakarta, where he embarked on a backpacking trip over Java, Bali and Sumatra. Alternating backpacking in Asia with a job at NBBS, a student travel organization, mostly selling airline tickets in that pre-computer era, Willem landed a job at a small travel agency in Thailand in 1987, the year of the highly successful Visit Thailand Year.

The early 90’s, when the Khiri Travel story begins, were an exciting time for Southeast Asia. The region had shook off decades of regional, domestic, and international conflict that had cost millions of lives and, to quote the then Thai Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan, was transforming “from a battlefield into a marketplace.”

In 1993, Cambodia had its UN-led elections which prompted the recovery from the brutal Pol Pot era and subsequent civil war. In 1994, President Clinton lifted the trade embargo on Vietnam that had been in place since 1975. In that same year, the Friendship Bridge spanning the Mekong opened, connecting Thailand to Laos.

In 1992, Willem was amongst the first group of journalists and travelers to journey overland from Bangkok to Danang in Vietnam. (The adventures of this trip can be found in James’ Eckardt’s book “On the Bus with the Yobs, Frogs, Sods and the Lovely Lena”). From there, he continued his solo travels to Cambodia.

Meanwhile, Willem’s lifelong friend and Khiri’s co-founder, Frans Betgem, was leading adventurous tours for Dutch tour operators in Vietnam. Despite having to work with the country’s heavy-handed bureaucracy, he traveled up and down Vietnam at least 15 times.

The Founding of Khiri Travel

These travel experiences were the inspiration to start Khiri Travel. The company first started as a business-to-business travel company dedicated to offering Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam as one incredible destination. A room at the Viengtai Hotel in the old quarter of Bangkok was rented as our first office, serving a small number of adventurous travel companies from The Netherlands, as well as US-based tour operators seeking help with off the beaten track programs. In 1995, a shophouse across the street became available and would remain the office for the next 8 years.

It was a time of adventure. We hosted a group of second generation Hmong, whose parents fled from Laos to the USA in 1975. Some of Khiri’s travelers were the first to take a boat from Luang Prabang to Vientiane in 1996. Khiri’s initial clients navigated the terrible roads between the Thai border and Siem Reap in pickup trucks. We arranged amazing overland adventures for alumni of Ivy League colleges and for donors of prestigious US museums. As infrastructure improved and new hotels opened up, travelers could enjoy adventures while staying in significantly more luxurious accommodations, and with less hardship of bumpy roads. Khiri Travel soon branched out and opened operational offices throughout the region to keep on the cutting edge of product development.

Offices in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Luang Prabang, Vientiane, and Siem Reap were opened, in addition to the Chiang Mai branch in Thailand, which was manned by Frans who joined the company full time in 1998.

Into the New Millennium

The Khiri Headquarters moved into a purpose-built office in the outskirts of Bangkok, Thailand, just in time to celebrate its 10-year anniversary in 2003. With tourism making a recovery after a very difficult period of SARS, 9/11 and the region’s terrible tsunami in 2002, Khiri Travel was entering into a busy period riding a wave of fast (and not always very sustainable) growth of tourism in the region.

In 2011, Khiri Travel fulfilled a longtime dream and opened up in Myanmar, just months before Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited the country to prepare for the lifting of its sanctions and the start of its tourism.

To support a growing number of North American partners, Khiri opened a dedicated office in Colorado, facilitating speedy turnarounds and reducing the issue of time difference.

To satisfy the demands of a growing base of happy tour operator clients, Khiri Travel expanded its destinations further by opening in Sri Lanka and Indonesia in 2016. Just after the Covid pandemic, Khiri Travel took that same decentralized spirit closer to home, formally separating Khiri Travel Thailand from the Bangkok head office — creating a dedicated Thailand country operation alongside what is now Khiri Group, the specialist team supporting every country across the network.

To the Present Day

To protect the signature creativity and program innovation that sets each destination apart, Khiri Travel’s country teams operate with a lot of autonomy. To enhance efficiencies, the Khiri Group team takes care of common issues across the network — marketing output, product standards, sustainability coordination, high-level finance, and the development and maintenance of Khiri’s proprietary systems. While each country keeps its own character, shining through in its travel products, Khiri Group keeps an eye on best-practice sharing and consistency across product categories. Its dedicated , independent charity arm, Khiri Reach, is supported by Khiri Ambassadors — full-time employees who get five working days a year to spend on vetted grassroots projects championing community and environmental causes. With a network of 20 offices, these ambassadors can directly monitor and support projects close to home.

Khiri Philippines opened in late 2024, and with offices in Cebu City and Metro Manila, it’s already serving many of our tour operator clients — further evidence that Khiri Travel’s adventure is still expanding.

Khiri Milestones

10. 2023
11. 2024
12. 2025

"It was a time of adventure.
Some of Khiri's travelers were the first to take
a boat from Luang Prabang to Vientiane in 1996"