Nurse finds his true calling: Running online travel business

Lean Emmanuelle Batistil, TraveLee Travel Services owner, enjoys the view at the Batu Cave during his trip to Malaysia.
Contributed photo

When Lean Emmanuelle Batistil started his own online travel agency in Davao City about five years ago, most people he dealt with at first could not believe he was running the venture.

Then 21 years old, most people thought Lee, as his friends would call him, was too young to start a business.

“Nobody believed me at the onset, but when they saw how hard I worked, they just told me to keep it up. Something that stuck with me over the years was hearing people tell me they were inspired because I was doing something worthwhile at such a young age,” he told Cebu Daily News.

Fast forward to the present, the 26-year-old owner of TraveLee Travel Services is now based in Cebu, earlier enamored by the province’s rich culture and history as well as warm, friendly people.

Nurse, banking, travel

Born in Davao and raised in Surigao del Sur, Lee is a nurse by profession and has worked in the field of medicine for about a year before taking a job at a bank.

While working in the banking industry, the young entrepreneur took it upon himself to combine his love for traveling and experience in service to jump-start his vocation.

“My love for traveling started when I was in high school, when inter-school competitions allowed me to go on trips to different parts of the country.

When I was in college, I wasn’t able to travel that often anymore,” he said.

His love for travel was fueled even more by his stint as a community organizer for a non-government organization, where he traveled all over the Davao region for one whole month.

P5K capital

With a capital of P5,000, Lee purchased a system referred to him by a friend which enabled him to easily book flights with all airline companies.
Lee started with a few corporate clients, booking airline tickets for businessmen who needed to travel to Manila.

His family expected him to go to Germany to work as a nurse, but that has been placed at the bottom of his priorities for now while he focuses on his travel agency venture.

“I still haven’t dropped the opportunity, but I have this image of me going to Europe, not as a nurse, but with TraveLee,” he said.

Cebu move

He decided to try his luck in Cebu in 2013, anchoring his confidence on the fact that the province is at the “center of everything.”

Aside from the fact that it is easier to get around Cebu City compared to Davao, which is quite bigger in size, he was also drawn to the beauty of the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño as well as Cebu province’s equally magnificent natural attractions.

Since the third quarter of 2015, TraveLee Travel Services has been offering Cebu-based tour packages including trips around the capital city, swimming with the whale sharks in Oslob, to taking a dip at the famous Kawasan Falls in Badian.

“I want my clients to experience Cebu the way I did when I first came here,” he said.

At present, between 15 and 20 people book TraveLee’s tour packages every month, most of whom are millennials looking for an adventure.

TraveLee also offers “conquer” packages to Batad, Daraitan, Minalungao, Mount Pinatubo, Mount Pulag, Mount Ulap, Real, and Sagada, all in the northern part of the Philippines.

Lee said he makes sure he has experienced his “product” first before he sells them, adding that it is very difficult to market something one hasn’t even tried yet.

The thing about being in an online business, he said, is that it allows him to be where he wants to be while still running the venture.

Challenges, plans

But being a sole proprietor, especially in an enterprise that entails a lot of work, can be taxing, Lee admitted.

“We have problems in finances and manpower. Compared to other agencies, we’re just relatively new. What our edge is, however, is that our services are more personalized,” he said.

For a long time, Lee has been happy-go-lucky when it comes to his business, not really caring so much about how he runs it.

But when he got the chance to be part of the third batch of the Department of Trade and Industry’s (DTI) Kapatid Mentor Me program, his passion for his enterprise was reinvigorated.

Lee said this renewed drive to succeed motivates him to improve the services his business offers.

While his focus is promoting destinations in Cebu and the rest of the Philippines, Lee said he aspires to go international as well.

Right now, the agency already has limited tour offerings to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Hong Kong, but are not as in demand as their local products.