However, the pollution generated by the growth of tourism and industrial activities is a menace to Vietnam‘s population, Ha Long Bay’s ecosystem, which might damage the first opportunity of Vietnam in terms of tourism.
Last and not least, the weather and the pollution problem! It’s recommended to avoid the season of the “mousson”, and the pollution generated by the growth of tourism and industrial activities is a threat to Vietnam’s population and especially to Ha Long Bay’s ecosystem. Now, Vietnam is not as well known as Malaysia for example, so this will require someone to do the promotion, so from the very 1st basis, this project represents a risk that no one is aware at all of Vietnam.
- Decisions Alternatives
In conducting this market research, we have defined several decisions alternatives:
- Develop people’s awareness
- Focus on a target population (youngsters, seniors, families, etc)
- Pinpoint advantages
Of course we shall define on what basis should we conduct our research:
If we want to implement differentiation that is to take shares of the market in Asia. We would need to underline how Vietnam’s beautiful and rich land is different from the other south east Asian countries.
Then we might want to base our research on a trial desire which consists in creating the appeal for a country to people who have never been to Vietnam and leading to a demand for this old new product that is leisure time in Vietnam. The potential demand could be very interesting. Another way is to implement a long run relationship with the customer, that is to please him in every detail of its scheduling and wants. After a trial trip in Vietnam this customer will want to go back another time.
c. Research users
The decision makers is the Vietnamese tourism board or the Vietnamese government. This means that we have to generate results that are serious and square. Our client want to develop the tourism in three particular cities in showing only the best and advantageous fact of the Country
Step 2: Research Objectives
a) The research questions
We have selected some key questions to frame the information we need to know.
The questions are:
- what is the definition of “good vacations” ? Is it to have sun, beach, or historical monuments to visit?
- We need data concerning the potential customers, to best describe their motivations: are they looking for culture, leisure vacation or just business when they travel; are they traveling with children, alone, in couple, with friends or with a tour? Which countries of Europe travel the most?
- What are the benefits, problems and facilities presented by Viet Nam?
b) Hypothesis development
We based our hypotheses on the fact that two of our members have real knowledge of the market since they are both Vietnamese and have already visited Viet Nam. Adding to this, we had the opportunity to collect some data concerning the statistics of tourism in Viet Nam. Therefore, we can develop this series of hypothesis:
-
Western European countries and specially France, are the most travelers (developed countries)
- France has a cultural background which is linked to Vietnam history
-
Most of tourists have visited Viet Nam for leisure, holidays and recreation
Ø Good facilities for accommodation (hotels…) and transportation (air…), good potential (national parks, long coastline, beautiful beaches, Huê the imperial city…)
- Research Boundaries
The scope of our research is mainly the following:
- Is the research question restricted to Developed countries of Europe?
- Should we also orient our research to European developing countries?
- Should we look at the business people who shall come to Vietnam on a precise date?
- Or shall we focus only on tourism?
Step 3: Estimation of the value of research information
The value of the information is great as long as we are students and that we have been assign this project in a short period. The benefit is high, plus the cost is low. Virtually we might have consider the estimation of the information in a different way if we had to claim a salary and conduct a survey and collect primary data for a real client and in a larger span of time.
II/ The research design
Step 1: The Research Approach
Exploratory: Since we have 3 Vietnamese members in our team, they actually have given the whole group a very complete exploratory overview of the situation of Vietnamese Tourism and they’ve been already several times to Vietnam, all this to say that we will rather focus on the Descriptive research approach as follows
Descriptive: The descriptive approach is very important in our eyes for our specific research because from the general overview we had , we now focus more on 3 particular sites (Hue , Ha Long bay and Nha Trang) as if we were taking a snapshot of the big picture. Our descriptive approach is , of course, much more detailed.
Causal: We think that a good descriptive approach allows us to not explore a causal approach method.
Step 2: Choice of data collection method
To conduct this marketing research we used both primary and secondary data.
The questionnaire we have designed can be considered as a primary data, since we did the questions, we made personal interviews and analyzed the customer feedbacks ourselves. Moreover, the fact to have two Vietnamese members in our group is a benefit for our survey. In fact, their knowledge of Vietnam is a concrete information. Besides, one of us has been in Vietnam this summer, therefore the information are fresh, recent, realistic and accurate. One of the other advantages of using primary data is that we have high control over the data collection and the information is not outdated.
Secondary data are essential to our project, since it is our first marketing research project on Viet Nam, and we are not much experienced in this field.
Thus, we chose to consult the “Maison de l’Indochine” (the House of Indochina) based in the 6th district of Paris, where we got information on Viet Nam’s culture and history.
We also contacted some travel agencies like “Havas Voyages” to have a catalogue of their destinations, in order to have tourism information and pictures on Viet Nam. Thanks to this kind of information, we can have an idea of the tour program and its average price, to better understand the market of tourism and to provide the potential visitors to Viet Nam the different solutions to get there on vacation at a competitive price.
We could not have conducted our research by ignoring the Internet. It is a huge source of data collection. Internet provided us several benefits such as being fast, what was the key to our research, since we lacked of time; and provided higher speed of delivering responses and feedback for our questionnaire. In fact, some data are only available from secondary data such as Viet Nam tourism’s statistics and surveys on Vietnamese’s tourism. It also represents low costs, which is essential for us as being students. However, we are aware that Internet has limitations, which are that we have no control over the data collection and that information can be outdated and not always accurate.
Here are some links we used:
AFP, April 28th 1999
Qualitative research is important in this case in order to find out what the general image of European travelers is on Vietnam , especially on Huê, Ha Long, Nha Trang. We’ll ask all that in our questionnaire through a variety of different questions.
The lack of time did not allow us to conduct experiments on Viet Nam’s tourism. Though we could not afford it, it would have been interesting to experiment the result of our survey by developing some partnership between Western European countries – like France – and Viet Nam. Thus, the lack of time and the high costs have limited us for experiments.
Step 3: Research tactics
Now that the research approach is set, let’s think about the research tactics and implementation which can be studied in three points:
- Measurement
We have chosen to design our questionnaire for individual interviews face to face but also via email. We didn’t feel the need to use any sensitive questions. We have decided together on what order to put the questions (see annexe for explanation of our choices concerning the questionnaire)
- Sampling Plan
Our target group will be composed of 40 people (our sample) : 20 of which are from the IGS campus and we contacted them by email (and actually got quick responses) and the other 20 people from Europe were randomly interviewed on the Champs Elysées Avenue. The reason of our choices is that both locations are filled with international individuals.
- Anticipating analysis
In order to avoid undesirable events, we check each question twice and we try to act as if we were interviewed by ourselves so that we can almost immediately see if the succession of the questions of the questionnaire is in the right order and if the ensemble of all the questions represent a coherent and helpful questionnaire. This is just to avoid bad surprises.
III/ Implementation
Step 1: Data collection
- Field Work
As said earlier, we interviewed twenty people in the IGS campus and the twenty other people on the Champs Elysées Avenue. From the twenty people we contacted by email, we got fifteen responses; and the other twenty people from the Champs Elysées Avenue all responded well and nicely.
We organized the data collection as follow:
- Three members of our team were in charge of interviewing people on the Champs Elysées Avenue, and collecting their answers.
- The other three members were sharing the work on the Internet: send the questionnaire by emails and print all the answers received.
- Data Processing
-
We went to the Embassy of Vietnam (located in the 16th district of Paris), where we collected five brochures and had further information on visas: for example, the passport should be valid at least six months after the day of return; and the visas have to be asked 45 days before the departure.
-
We went to “La Maison de l’Indochine” (located in the 6th district of Paris, in partnership with UNESCO) where we learnt that they organize tours of sixteen days across Vietnam, passing through Ha Long, Hanoï, Huê and Ho Chi Minh Ville. We had the chance to meet a French tourist who just came back from Vietnam, and gave us some interesting comments on his trip in the North of Vietnam: “Of course, there is a high interest in visiting those amazing landscapes of the North, but keep in mind that this region does not provide comfortable facilities and specially for transportation and accommodation”.
-
The Havas Voyages agency of Auteuil in the 16th district of Paris, told us that most of their organized tours propose specials offers and discounts formulas for families who travel with their children.
- These are the links we surfed on:
-
(see annexe): This site is a governmental site, which provides statistics on the visitors arrivals to Vietnam in 2002.
-
: We learnt that it is necessary to follow a treatment against paludism and the best season to get there is between November and March.
-
-
:it is the Vietnamese Office of Information. We learnt that 388 hotels in Vietnam were ranked from 1 to 5 stars. Furthermore, more than 3000 touristy guides have received their professional qualification card.
Step 2 : Data analysis
a) Primary data analysis
Our primary data are feedbacks from the questionnaire. Here are the statistics:
- 80% of the sample travel outside their country of residence for holidays
- For 20% of the sample, it is too expensive to travel outside their country, but all of them have heard about Vietnam. Only 33% of them have heard about Ha Long Bay, Huê or Nha Trang. Nevertheless, they would be interested in visiting those places (85%) and are ready to fill in the personal details form for some travel agencies database (70%).
➔ This is interesting for our Marketing Research since they are interested in visiting those 3 sites, we can suggest them several solutions to get there at a competitive price. It’s a good elementfor attracting more tourists to Ha Long Bay, Hue and Nha Trang
- From the 80% who travel outside their country of residence, half of them are French, 10% come from the UK, 15% come from Italy, 20% from Germany, and 5% from Austria. So we can note that those countries are among the developed countries.
- Most of people who have been in Asia, travel by plane, stayed at the hotel and are mostly attached to the change of scenery. Their last trip was in summer for the major part, and the average of the length of stay is around 2 weeks, with a weekly budget of approximately 1600 euros
➔ We can notice that their purchasing power are higher than those who’ve never been outside Europe, they are willing to go back again to these 3 sites which are not overtouristic and overcrowded so that they can have more comfort. This is interesting for the tourism industry to know that because it’s a proof that the market exist and that now we have to enhance the quality of life (accommodation and transportations)
- Those who’ve been in Vietnam graded mostly at 4 the level of satisfaction (cf. questionnaire) meaning they were very pleased with their journey.
- Those who visit Asia but have never been in Vietnam have nevertheless heard about it through brochures and touristy guidebooks.
b) Secondary data analysis
Statistical analysis for secondary data:
We observed as seen in the annexes, that the preferred transportation means to come to Vietnam is largely the airplane. This is certainly the cause of a choice by cost limitations. The farther you are from Vietnam the higher the cost of the ticket. We can take for example, China and Cambodia which are the closest countries from Vietnam as they have a common borderline. China represents the biggest supplier of tourists for Vietnam.
In Europe, France is the biggest supplier of tourist, and second the United Kingdom. We can easily link the two common historical contexts. France and the United States of America have a same interest in Vietnam, both have been part of its history during several years. Many French who come in Vietnam want to visit cultural and historical monuments and buildings. Such as the Notre-Dame Cathedral built by Gustave Eiffel in Saigon. In Nha Trang the north district is mainly French, they are largely expatriated in the city and benefit from an French interest for scuba diving in Nha Trang. Statistically Vietnam appeal demand from foreign countries for one main reason which is leisure, recreation and holidays. Visiting friends and relatives is the second purpose. As the result of the different wars occurred in Vietnam, many Vietnamese have ran away from their native country. But since the economy and the policy of the country has settled down, they are willing and able to go back to Vietnam to visit their family which stayed in the country or to discover what remained after the wars.
The country is aware of the potential of tourism in Vietnam and is mainly responsible of the promotion of Vietnam throughout the world. Ten years ago the tourism activity only attracted 250 000 people in 1990, though in 2000 this has timed 9, that is 2 000 000 foreign tourists. The result of the fast pace of the Vietnamese economy and the huge growth rate 6.8 in 2003, has encouraged the development of the country. Living standard has increased and the quality of life is much more closest from industrialized countries.
c) Business customers
We did not focus on the business customers because we realized that the demand was quite different from the demand for tourist customers. The objective of our project which we were assigned by the Vietnamese board of tourism, was to promote Halong, Hue and Nha Trang which are mainly three cities attractive for their natural resources and potential tourism activities. Business people who come to Hue, Halong or Nha Trang are part of the hotel industry or link with the tourism business. Because these three cities are not very industrialize such as the two main cities in Vietnam: Hanoi and Saigon (HCM). Business people willing to come to Hue, Nha Trang and Halong are very few.