Vietnam

Vietnam Tourism – Marketing Research

Introduction

Vietnam has a thousand-year history, with an originally traditional culture, rich variety of relics, landscapes and many other tourism resources, which are serious attraction for tourists. During these past years, along with the renovation of the country, Vietnam Tourism gradually had been developed. The number of international visitors to Vietnam had increased from 250,000 to 1,7 millions from 1990 to 1997 respectively. At the same period, the domestic visitors grew from 1 to 8,5 millions. The infrastructure for tourism had been upgraded. Despite Vietnam's ongoing economic liberalization and the pressure of rapid development, this country has managed to preserve its rich civilisation and highly cultured society. Our team is composed of six members, five of which are Asian  (three Vietnamese, two Chinese) and our sixth member is European because we needed a delicate mix of objectivity and sensitivity to the topic of research. Our goal is to promote and strengthen the Vietnamese tourism via the proposal of three of the most interesting places – yet still under exploited -- to visit in Vietnam: Ha Long Bay classified as World Natural Heritage, Huê  - the imperial city – and the beautiful and charming beaches of Nha Trang. In three parts (the preliminary planning stage, the research design and the implementation) we will try to understand the consequences of the information generated and conduct recommendations for the Vietnamese Tourism Board.

I/ The Preliminary Planning Stage

Step 1- The Research Purpose

  1. Problems and Opportunities Analysis

Tourism in Vietnam represents a great opportunity since the number of visitors’ arrivals to the country has increased by approximately 10% between 2001 and 2002 and even contributes in this way to the Vietnamese GDP. Moreover, foreign investment for Vietnam in this year represents 156 projects (including 106 hotels) which are mainly in the Vietnamese tourism. The tourism industry has a great potential because Vietnam attracts visitors with its culture and history but also because of its natural environments. Indeed, Vietnam’s long coastline offers tourists great pleasure to discover its beautiful beaches such as the one from Nha Trang or to enjoy the eighth World natural Heritage site known as the Ha Long Bay (recognized and officially approved by the UNESCO as the 8th wonder of the world!).

Moreover, the image of the country reflects a peaceful, exotic, adventurous land. Quality of leisure time has been increasing during the years: individuals prefer less vacations but the quality should be consequent. Asian countries attract more and more people. They are the symbol of exotic leisure and Vietnam benefit from this demand for Asian countries. Newspapers in Vietnam highlight the fact that recent problems with terrorism in Bali could diminish drastically the tourism in South east Asia such as Thailand, but will benefit to Vietnam as long as Islam is no very represented in the country.

Another opportunity lies in the fact that we do exploit three sites that aren’t known as much as Hanoi or Saigon, so there’s still a lot to do and to discover and on the market this will represent something “new” and “trendy”, those 3 sites (Ha Long Bay, Huê and Nha Trang) aren’t yet overexposed to massive tourism, but  there is this tendency which explains the surprising craze for travelling through Asia and in Vietnam. Other opportunities from which European tourists could benefit are the rather low prices in the country compared to Europe, and this is actually due to the weakness of the Vietnamese currency. Last, French and English are commonly spoken languages.

As for the problems or obstacles, Vietnam does not have enough modern infrastructure to compete with other countries (competitors) and concerning accommodation and transportation, they still are rather primitive or at least not too well developed. Nevertheless the nature of the relationship between the country and the customer could be a source of problems. The image of the country is still associated with the War, though it has ended long ago. On the contrary several people awareness about Vietnam is very low. They won’t think of spending their leisure time in Vietnam. Then the country is young in the tourism business, it is not promoted as Thailand or very touristy countries which have learnt how to attract tourists.

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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 ...

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