EXO Story

Early years of EXO

The genesis of EXO can be traced back to Vietnam in 1993. Four visionary young entrepreneurs - Eric Merlin, Olivier Colomes, Denis Colonna, and Thụy Khang Trần - crossed paths and recognized the moment was ripe to start a travel venture. Soon, Exotissimo was created, becoming the first foreign-owned enterprise to secure a tourism operating license in Vietnam.
Simultaneously, in other parts of Asia, budding travel entrepreneurs were carving their niches. In Cambodia, Meng Heng founded Pich Tourist in Phnom Penh, securing one of the rare tourism licenses and soon became the ground operator for Exotissimo. In Myanmar, Su Su Tin
embarked on entrepreneurial ventures in a once-reclusive nation that was just opening for visitors. Over in Thailand, Hamish Keith, initially a tour leader, founded an adventure tour operation catering to English-speaking clientele and quickly forged an alliance with EXO in Indochina. Further to the south in Indonesia, the Agustini family had established Maniara Tours and been welcoming visitors to Bali since 1987. By now Oliver had opened a sales office in Paris and it was clear that the interest in travel to Vietnam was going to exceed expectations and the partners set about creating innovative and exciting tours, to showcase emerging destinations to curious travelers. In 1995, eager to grow the already successful business beyond Vietnam, Eric met Su Su and EXO Myanmar was born, becoming Exotissimo’s second destination and an immediate hit with the adventurous French travel market keen to explore new emerging destinations.

By the turn of the millennium, Exotissimo had become a force in the region, was the leading DMC for the European market and was looking to expand across the rest of Indochina. In 2000, Meng agreed to join the founders and EXO Cambodia was launched with offices in Siem Reap and Phnom Penh. A year later, EXO Laos was established when Vientiane based Duangmala Phommavong came on board as a co-founder with offices in Vientiane, Luang Prabang and Pakse. The following year, Hamish merged his Thailand business into the expanding venture giving birth to EXO Thailand and accelerating EXO’s expansion into the English speaking markets. Around this time, Dennis decided to move on to new adventures and Eric's brother, Jean-Marc Merlin, came on board to form a core EXO Group ownership team along with Eric, Olivier and Hamish, with Su Su, Meng and Duangmala as managing partners of their respective destinations.

Becoming a global brand

As our reputation as a leading DMC began to grow, our fresh approach to tailor-made touring, an obsessive focus on service quality and innovative program planning attracted an increasingly large international client base. To meet growing demand, further sales offices were established in Spain, Germany and North America and Australia and later in the UK, Ireland and Latin America. Now with global reach, Olivier and Hamish set up new EXO headquarters in Bangkok in 2007 and rebranded Exotissimo as EXO Travel.
With Bangkok as a head office, EXO built a team of highly-experienced professionals in marketing, product, web and systems to maintain the rapid growth of EXO Group and continue to meet and exceed the demands of clients worldwide. Specialist teams were developed to meet the specific needs of Luxury travelers, Adventure tour operators and Meeting and Incentive planners and EXO Luxe, EXO Adventure and EXO Events were created.

Further expansion

After another period of building, growth and fine-tuning, in 2009 we further expanded our operations in Southeast Asia by taking over Maniara Tours in Bali and by partnering with Trisna Agustini and long term EXO manager, Erik Meriott to launch EXO Indonesia.
WIth the momentum of success behind us and a plan in place for further expansion we identified an opportunity to bring EXO’s unique blend of excellent service and experiential product development to Japan, which was then a small but emerging destination for western luxury travelers. So in 2011 EXO Japan was born and despite an initial setback with the Fukushima disaster temporary limiting growth, Japan quickly grew into a tourism powerhouse soon becoming one of EXO’s major destinations
At the same time, in 2012, we took the step across the sea to open EXO China and develop a business in the world’s most populous country and by far the largest EXO destination geographically.

Then in 2015 we completed our first full acquisition, taking over Insight Borneo and launching EXO Malaysia with offices in Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur. This was soon followed with the exciting addition of our tenth destination: EXO Singapore. By 2019, EXO had grown into a 800 people organization with over twenty fully staffed operations offices across ten countries and a sales team managing relationships with partners all around and the world.

Truly responsible travel

Ever since we started, everyone at EXO always felt a responsibility to try to make destinations better places for people to live in and for travelers to visit. In 2012 we established EXO Foundation with a vision to support sustainable development projects and promote responsible tourism in all our destinations. This non-profit organization operates independently and is funded through EXO Travels’ direct contributions and partner donations and has now raised over USD 1M which we use to support communities and projects in Asia.

By 2015 we had received the coveted Travelife certification - becoming the largest DMC in Asia to achieve this award. The achievement was a culmination of three years of guidance from the EXO Foundation to take a pioneering role in a movement to fundamentally change Asia for the better through responsible travel.
Our ambition is to pave the way for mainstreaming good practices within the travel industry in Asia, and to build a company that is a force for good in travel. We aim to maximize the potential for tourism so that business can become a tool for poverty alleviation and sustainable development as well as providing authentic, enriching and rewarding experiences for our guests. In 2023 we became a Certified B-Corp and are working hard to ensure our company continues to meet the very highest standards and benefits all stakeholders in our business, including our people, our partners, local communities and the planet.

A stronger, more connected EXO

EXO emerged from the pandemic with renewed ambition and a clear vision for the future. Building on more than three decades of experience in Asia, we began a new chapter of expansion, first strengthening our regional footprint with Korea before moving beyond Asia into Morocco and Egypt. Today, EXO is evolving into a truly global DMC, bringing together a growing network of locally based travel experts under one connected organisation.

For our partners, this growing footprint means greater access to destinations while retaining the qualities that have defined EXO from the beginning: deep local knowledge, creative product development, personal service and consistently high operating standards. Across every destination, our teams share the same commitment to creating meaningful travel experiences, building lasting partnerships and using tourism as a positive force for local communities and the environment. Our B Corp certification reflects this commitment and provides a common foundation as EXO continues to grow.

In 2026, EXO joined the JTB Group, marking another important step in this journey. Combining EXO's destination expertise, entrepreneurial culture and established partner network with JTB's global reach, scale and more than a century of travel expertise creates new opportunities to invest in our people, products, technology and sustainability while extending our capabilities around the world. As part of JTB Group, EXO remains focused on what has always made us distinctive, while gaining an even stronger platform from which to pursue our global ambitions.