The east longitude from: 103°27′ to 109°27 ′
The north latitude from: 8°30′ to 23°24 ′
Ho Chi Minh City is located in the South of Vietnam.(refer Fig 1.2, 1.3) Before the America war, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) which was the capital of South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam). HCMC is a special city in Vietnam. If Ha Noi is political capital of Vietnam, HCMC is economical capital of Vietnam. Nearby HCMC, manufacturing industries are a thriving business. Vietnam was at war around 1970 because of an ideology. The population of Vietnam is 79.93 million in 2001 as well as it’s estimated to 81million in 2004. Population of HCMC is about 8 million in 2004. The climate is classified by dry season and wet season. Dry season starts from December to April, wet season starts from May to November. The average temperature is 26C to 29C.
Tourism in Vietnam is growing well now. In the south of Vietnam, Mekong delta tour, Cu Chi tunnel tour and HCMC city tours are operating. Cu Chi tunnel is a track of warfare. Also Mui Ne, Vung Tau is one of the better coastal resorts to go to. In the middle of Vietnam, a historical tour is suitable. Popular places are Hue, Da nang. At the north of Vietnam, Sapa, Halong Bay and HaNoi city tour are very popular. Sapa is the small nation city in Vietnam. We can experience what beauty is. Ha long bay has fantastically-shaped rocks in the sea.
Dong Khoi is located in central Saigon. There’s an agglomeration with expensive hotels, Shops and restaurants. Also, if you go through this street, you may see the buildings that represent Saigon as well as Vietnam.
Pham Ngu Lao is one of the famous street for the tourists, because there’s lots of cheap hotels, restaurants and travel agency. The Pham Ngu Lao there’s agglomeration for the tourism such as De Tham, Bui Vien.
Methods
I’ve got 3 kinds of data. Survey, Land use map, Informal sector & hotel. As well as I’ll search the information on the web for map, tour information about Vietnam. Lastly, I’ll use the Korean tourism book for Vietnam. All the stuffs that I used will be written in my bibliography.
Survey
Use the survey results to make a relevant chart and make a relevant graph.
Informal sector & Hotel
Comparison of price of the hotel.
Results Analysis
In the hypothesis I mentioned about the location. As you can see in Fig 1.4, 1.5, 1.6, 1.7 Dong Khoi Street is located in the central of HCMC. Also, you can confirm lot of 4, 5 star hotels are located in near Dong Khoi Street. For example, Renaissance Riverside Hotel, Legend Hotel, Hotel Majestic, Caravelle Hotel, Hotel Continental, Sofitel Plaza Hotel, Saigon Sheraton. As well as you can see many of known places are close to Dong Khoi Street than Pham Ngu Lao Street. For instance, museums (Historical, War Remnants, Fine Arts), independence palace, department stores (Diamond, TAX, Parkson), Restaurant.
I couldn’t prove my hypothesis that is ‘Pham Ngu Lao is one of the more dangerous area’. But as you can see in this graph, my hypothesis was wrong. I think the reason is that happens at night. Because these illegal happing are always happens at night. As well as the DK tourists’ bad experiences are maybe concern to exorbitant prices.
Fig 1.8 <Survey: Q20 Have they had any bad expreiences with locals in general?>
I mentioned about middle to high class tourists prefer to stay near Dong Khoi Street. The reasons may be, near the Dong Khoi Street, there are lots of known, famous places to go, shopping, appreciate and tour. Therefore, most of the tourist may prefer to stay near Dong Khoi Street. However, the fact is the accommodation that are located near Dong Khoi Street, really expensive than the accommodation that are located in Pham Ngu Lao. So, the tourist who haven’t got enough money or don’t want to spend for about $150 for a night rest (Refer to Fig 1.9). The average price of hotels that are located near Pham Ngu Lao is approximately $22 per night with air conditioning. (Fig.1.10)
Fig 1.9 <Name, price of the representative hotel that are located near Dong Khoi Street>
Fig 1.10 <Name, price of the representative hotel that are located near Pham Ngu Lao Street>
The reason that I use Lowest Price, the tourist who traveling HCMC, most of them are tour themselves individually (refer Fig 1.11). They will surely stay at single room. All the single rooms are has lowest price. So I just made a chart for lowest price.
What I mean of ‘representative hotel’ is, the hotel that assume have more than 30 rooms. I can confirm that in PNL’s data. But I couldn’t confirm that in DK’s data. So, I just assumed it.
Fig 1.11 < Q4 How are they traveling?>
As you can see in this graph, we can reflect about different types of tourist.
In PNL, more than 60% of people are travel individually as well as only 10% of people are travels with package tour. In DK, about 40% people travel individually, quarter of people travels with package tour.
Individual tourist may don’t want to spend a lot of money for their night. Because they may stay at accommodation for sleep only.
If the tourists travel with their family or their lover, they may want to have funs as well as they may want to make a good reminiscence with their family, lover. So they want to stay high class hotel that provide range of services, choices. These hotels are located in DK. That’s why the numerical values of individual tourist in DK is lower than PNL.
Package tourism is complicated. Because all the package tourism is made by Travel agency. Travel agency wants to develop their image by providing cheap and good trips for the consumers (package tourists). Therefore travel agency wants to provide good accommodation with low prices to make the package tourist satisfied. The reasons that travel agencies provide expensive rooms to low cost rooms are so that they can use a stratagem between travel agency and the expensive accommodation which may are located in Dong Khoi Street.
In this hypothesis, I couldn’t prove stratagem, because I can’t find out their illicit relationship. I can just assume that. However, you can see in Fig 1.11, in DK Street, there are 25% of tourists who tour with package tour. However, in PNL Street, only 10% of tourists who tour with package tour. Therefore, you can see package tourism agency prefer their customer to stay DK Street and their customers may prefer to stay DK Street.
Fig 1.12 < Q6 what is the purpose of their visit?>
In Fig 1.12, we can confirm DK and PNL cater to different types of tourist. Percentage of general tourist was nearly same which was 60%(60%, 59%). But in case of backpacker, In DK, there are only 16% of people are backpackers. 29% of people are backpacker in PNL. Most of backpacker doesn’t have enough money or they don’t want to spend lots of money. So they stay at PNL because of saving their money. And another point that we have to consider is business. People who visit here for business, they may want to maintain their dignity. So they want to stay in hotel that are located DK. As well as we can think about business man may have more money, so they have enough money to stay in DK (generally high class hotel).
Fig 1.13 < Q5 How long do they plan to stay in HCMC?>
This results are predictable. Because long term travels prefer PNL. Because of PNL’s attractive price. (refer to Fig 1.9, 1.10). Long term travelers may be not able to stay high class hotels that are located in DK. It will eat the traveler’s money. So they prefer to stay at PNL. If the people who stay at DK long term, they may have discounted price or the price of the hotel may be cheap or may served by travel agency.
Middle to high class tourists prefer to stay near Dong Khoi Street. Because the hotels that are located in Dong Khoi Street are more convenient, safe and provide range of quality services such as swimming pool, Massage service, Restaurant, Café, Gym, Sauna, Bar. Tourist will pay high charges but many of them prefer to stay near Dong Khoi Street because of these reasons. In conclusion, they may satisfy with their trip. See Fig 1.14, you can realize people who stayed at DK Street; they graded HCMC higher than people who stayed at PNL when we take error into consideration. Because we can say their grade of HCMC is same as their general satisfaction.
Fig 1.14 <Q33 Grade of HCMC>
Conclusion
Overall, the evidence suggests that our hypothesis was generally right.
District 1(near Dong Khoi) and Pham Ngu Lao cater to different types of tourists. As you can see,
Person who travel alone, they prefer to stay in PNL as well as Backpacker prefer to stay in PNL.
Low budget/and/or long term travelers prefer Pam Ngu Lao. It’s definitely clear. Because accommodation that are located in PNL, the prices are attractive. Also long term travels can’t stay high class hotel without any kind of discount.
Package and or middle to high class tourists and business man prefer to stay in District 1(near Dong Khoi). Because it’s more convenient, safe than PNL. Most of the tourists prefer to stay in D1 I think. But the reason people stay at PNL is surely the price of the accommodation.
Middle to high class tourist and business man may have enough money to pay more than about $100 for a night. Package tour is special case. I hypothesized that there’s stratagem between the hotels and tourist agency’.
Evaluation
When I’m analyzing survey, what I want you to consider is, in the PNL’s survey, there’s 80 people’s data in it. However DK’s suvey, there’s 83 people’s data in it. I intended to make a graph to refer percentage, but it’s really hard to calculate all questions’ percentage. So I decided to use the question that I really needed.
Survey result error was one of the hardest problems for me. In Fig 1.15, there’s lots of error. It’s really hard to analyze.
In Fig 1.9, 10.10 I used term of ‘representative hotel’, which means, the hotel that assume have more than 30 rooms. However I couldn’t confirm about ‘how many rooms does hotel have that are located DK?’ So, I just assumed it.
I couldn’t prove some of my explanation such as ‘Pham Ngu Lao is one of the more dangerous area’ or ‘stratagem between the hotels and tourist agency’. I intended to get the information about it. But there is no way to get that information. We can just hear it from someone like a rumor.
Land use map was Useless for me. I tried to deal with agglomeration. But I realize when I’m analyzing the data. Land use map is unnecessary for my hypothesis. So I gave it up to use.
One thing that I want to mention lastly is, I couldn’t keep word limit. It’s really hard to keep the word limit. So I next time, I’ll try to keep the word limit.
