Thesis hoang anh (6)

Topic: Analyze the impacts of COVID 19 on local Destination Management Companies – The case study in Ho Chi Minh CHATER INTRODUCTION Research problem 1.1 Background In early January 2020, 41 patients being confirmed infectious by a novel coronavirus (COVID19) had been admitted to hospitals in China (Huang et al., 2020) Even though the virus spread rapidly in the country’s Wuhan region, it was initially largely disregarded by political leaders in other parts of the world (although intelligence services issued warnings of a potentially cataclysmic event; Washington Post, 2020) From the very first time, a kind of virus is supposed to be variant of SARS 2003(Brenda L.Tesini,2020), by then global air transport had already carried the virus to all continents and, by mid-March, it had been established in 146 countries(Anderson et al., 2020; Johns Hopkins, 2020) Ideally, it’s considered as the first time ever, more than 100 countries had to apply the policy as border closing, social distancing in order to disease control Understanding the level of disease, Vietnam’s government is just like other countries around the world decide to implement the measure in very soonest and effectively by the policy such as border closing, social distancing , banned international flight, no visa entry for immigration….Typically, all the cases of entry to Vietnam has to be in isolation in 14 days and sample testing in times for day( Ministry of health,2020) It helps the government to control disease outbreaks quickly and effectively within the territory of Vietnam However, in order to measure the disease, government has to close the international fight and hence border It leads to Vietnam’s tourism on challenging with the inbound market bIn the first months of this year, international visitors to Vietnam reached 3.7 million, down 48.8% over the same period last year due to the impact of Covid-19 epidemic; especially, the sharp decline in May was due to Vietnam continuing to implement measures to prevent and control Covid-19 epidemic, not yet opened to international tourism.[General Statistics Office (Ministry of Planning and Investment)] Addressing Saigon-tourist- a leading company in Vietnam for both markets as inbound and domestic gave out a year-on-year drop of 80 percent in customer numbers in February and 90 percent in March resulting in US$21.1 million fall in monthly revenues With practically no international arrivals since March 25, tourism and related businesses have suffered significant losses It totally curves about dangerous frame-work for Vietnam Tourism, which is considered as the key factor in Vietnam Economy Furthermore, addressing a head of domestic department at Hanoi Tourism Corporation – Hanoi Tourist said “ He often works for 22 days for month, even working for weekend to keep track the schedule of tour,… but now he just work for only days for months Besides, the salary of employee decreased strongly due to no revenue It seemed to be he is lucky for still receiving the salary, compared to other travel agencies, those who work in there were not able to receive any some from their company Some agencies with small and super small scale are forced to close or "purge" a large number of employees and guides who have no jobs because they could not stay the whole time.(nhandan.com.vn,2020) Mr Nguyen Giang Nam, Director of Asia Pacific Travel Company, said that the company's travel business division has been temporarily suspended from 20-3 until now and has been forced to reduce its salary by 50% After that, the resort sector also "froze." Businesses specializing in international arrivals, such as Asia Pacific Travel, have determined that they will continue to operate until the end of 2020 because they have never know when industry to be stabilized (nhandan.com.vn, 2020) Typically, we mention about Ho Chi Minh City as the best destination for Vietnam Tourism in terms of Inbound and Domestic With the fastest movement of economy and tons of projects, Ho Chi Minh is considered the leading place of Vietnam for welcoming million international tourists and hence domestic Under the pressured of pandemic, the number of international visitors to Ho Chi Minh City decreased by more than 84 percentages, the revenue decreased by 71 percentages, by the end of the first quarter of this year, there were more than 20,000 out of more than 28,000 employees working in accommodation establishments have lost their job temporarily or forced to change jobs (baodulich.com, 2020) Last but not least, it made people think about SARS in 2003, happened in total of months but consequence of virus expanding until months or worse in year That could be a reason that many Destination Management companies closed down and peoples who works in company has to change their career Ideally, this crisis does not only impact on losses on revenue, talents of companies, but also on business, branding of enterprises Covid19 is even worse It was affected on psychology of people and objective of living standard after pandemic My research is about to review all the factors which affect to Tourism industry and hence impact of it on Destination Management Companies; especially for Ho Chi Minh City 1.2 The statement of research topic As the direct reflection of COVID-19, The World Travel and Tourism has warned 50 million people across the globe in travel and Tourism Industry may be at risk (World Economic Forum, [cited 2020 Mar 20]) To be considered the most dynamic sections with dynamic human resources in Tourism Industry: what are Destination Management Companies in Ho Chi Minh City are suffering and doing to solve all these problems? This paper is about to analyze the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on Destination Management companies As we are operating in an increasingly difficult business environment, knowing how businesses respond to crisis will be a great lesson for all of us, especially those who are about to enter the field of tourism and travel 1.3 Aims and objectives This study aims to analyze impacts of pandemic called Covid-19 on the Tour Operators and Destination Management Companies in Ho Chi Minh City on March 2020 until now To achieve the goals, the following objectives are set-out:    Impact on the business Impact on staffs and operation Other difficulties and challenges Research question: To meet the objective, five research questions are formulated:      How have all the markets (in-bound and domestic) been impacted? What is the current situation of DMC in Ho Chi Minh during pandemic? What are difficulties and challenges of people who work in DMC facing? What are the challenges that Destination Management companies facing? What are the solution and plan for DMC? 1.4 The importance of Research This is considered a dangerous disease that has never happened before As the consequence of its, many industries in the economic system was effected, such as: luxury industry of the world has to stop producing (www.mckinsey.com) Thus, Inditex- the company that owns fashion brand Zara, has announced it will close 1,200 stores, Strait-Times reported This is equivalent to 16% of Inditex's retail locations globally and they decided to move comes after the company tends to shift to online sales by COVID-19 Besides, "It took us 12 years to build Airbnb and took almost everything in just to weeks," this is exactly what Brian Chesky, CEO of AirBnb said in an interview on CNBC It is a pandemic that has a strong influence on tourism, including the operation of AirBnb But looking deeper, AirBnb has been reporting constant losses for years In the first quarter of fiscal 2019 alone, their losses doubled to $ 306 million In just months, we are able to see through all the big brands close down business As such, how were companies in Ho Chi Minh City before and after pandemic As we know, our government controlled successfully with the number of zero cases in Vietnam Tourism just came back with the bright of future by pushing the demand of domestic tourism but tons of challenging We get back to SARS 2003 to think about the Covid19, many enterprise in Tourism had to face off lots of loss and the consequence of it in a year However, the damage of Covid19 can be considered as hammer than previous SARS Besides, this paper aims for the objective of overview of Destination Management companies was effected by which way from Covid19 It shall be not dig in the revenue and hence the working capital in dangerous way Thus, this paper would like to give an in-sight the resolution of DMC for finding the strategy to have the risk management In order to come back to market, shall they need the support from government or have the plan for change themselves to get along after pandemic CHAPTER LITERATURE REVIEW 2.1 How Covid19 impacts on Tourism Industry and hence Vietnam’s tourism Figure1 Spreading Map of Covid19 As we can see, the widely spreading out of this pandemic is that much and very dangerously It is affecting around the world and going through in every surface of earth No one knows when it can happen to their health and even their family and relatives It’s considered as the most of dangerous thing ever Government around the world seems to under pressure to find the plan to control this disease On the other hand, WHO and other department concerning has been working for all day and even night to find the vaccines but still nothing better until now Tourism is the industry easily affected by external factors In this paper, we use the PESTEL frame-works as the excellent tools to find the external regards to the current organization external environmental Figure1 This concept is about to analyze external factors regards to organization- tourism Political : Government around the world starts to apply the terms and policy for border closed to movement of non-citizens and non-residence as of 31 March 2020 and partial border closures, including restrictions of people arriving from certain other countries or where not all types of borders are closed (air, land, sea) (Gössling, S., Scott, D., & Hall, C M (2020) Pandemics, tourism and global change: a rapid assessment of COVID-19 Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 120.) Disease outbreaks restrict countries from traveling by air, sea and road, leading to travel restrictions As the consequence of restricting of government in terms of traveling and immigration Demand would also fall due to other factors such as foreign buyers delaying or withdrawing orders; tourists, both local and foreign, cancelling trips; and the declines in the stock market which erodes peoples’ wealth and their willingness to spend Lower overall domestic consumer demand will have a negative impact on production and employment The drop-in consumer demand may have a lower effect in manufacturing, where companies could, if they have access to credit, build up stocks of finished goods rather than reduce production and lay off staff However, the effects on the small-scale services sector are likely to be dramatic (Khan and Yasmine Khan, 2020) Economic : “In the current period, Vietnam's economy relies largely on foreign direct investment to attract the capital from overseas to support its continual economic rigor.”(Wikipedia, Economy of Vietnam) Based on the pinpoint above, we are able to figure out that Vietnam’s economy concerns to FDI companies “Powered by continuous growth, Vietnam continues to attract record foreign direct investment (FDI) The latest data from the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) shows that FDI reached US$ 38.2 billion in Vietnam in 2019, an increase of 7.2 per cent compared to the same period in 2018.” (Samuel, Pritesh FDI in Vietnam – Where is the Investment Going.2019) This is demonstrated Vietnam-a country on the way to develop with the attraction of investment from capitalist countries from oversea with a large number of hundreds of millions of dollars a year The direct influence of the epidemic has a strong impact on the Vietnamese economy In particular, we can see a problem that is directly affected by the external factor is tourism Tourism including vehicles such as airplanes, boats as well as hotels where businessmen come to Vietnam to invest is likely to be closed due to disease and a lot of factors We can see that the economic factor is a strong factor affecting the negative impact on the tourism industry When it all froze, the joint ventures adopted a policy of "working from home", conferences and talks taking place online A series of large and small projects are organized every year for the purpose of economic attraction, ultimately stimulating tourism has been canceled From the quarter in 2020, pandemic appeared around the world and no one can be missed Vietnam According to the Vietnam Tourism Association, from the beginning of the year until now, due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, business activities at the accommodation establishments decreased from 20% to 50% compared to the same period in 2019 The number of tourists coming to important destinations such as Hanoi, Quang Ninh, Ho Chi Minh City decreased by 20% -50% To be expected the number of international visitors to Vietnam in March 2020 decreased by more than 60%, the number of domestic tourists decreased by 80% Therefore, the immediate task of the tourism industry is to find solutions to stimulate demand to overcome this decline (hanoimoi, 2020) Deputy General Director of the General Department of Tourism Ngo Hoai Chung said that Vietnam is organizing effective prevention and control of epidemics The destinations still ensure safety, creating peace of mind for visitors, which is the basis for the tourism industry to develop an appropriate stimulus strategy According to the Standing Vice Chairman of Vietnam Tourism Association Vu The Binh, in order to stimulate the demand for effective tourism, tourists must see that Vietnam is an interesting and safe destination Therefore, the Vietnam Tourism Association has built a set of criteria "Safe tourism", which emphasizes the requirements for prevention, epidemic prevention and protection of tourists.(hanoimoi,2020) Last but not least, we count on sociocultural that effecting on Tourism Industry and hence it’s considered as strong negative factors that affected to Tourism Industry Travel is fashionable and hence with the rising of using social media applied into Travel Trends, people seemed to narrowing down the distance and sometimes researching the information of destination in very detailed “The social popularity of travel causes individuals to travel when they might have otherwise stayed home Of course, this is a positive move for the tourism industry, but it may not see sustainable growth if society moves away from the use of social media.” Since the pandemic broke down, tons of contents which is posted in social media related to the number of deaths in typical of countries and hence the spearing out of fake news that lead Tourism industry faced off with loss People seemed to be over-loaded with the information for day; they had no clue where is original source to observe Social: anyone found “sharing fake news and misinformation about the coronavirus risks a visit from the police” (Vietnam’s corona virus offensive wins praise for low cost model, 2020) and around 800 people have been fined so far It is not the kind of approach that is likely to work in more open societies But with limited clinical resources at its disposal, Viet Nam has seemingly managed to get the outbreak under control “That’s the challenge facing many of the world’s poorer, developing nations - including countries like Viet Nam But while it might look like a foregone conclusion that the coronavirus outbreak would ravage such a country, Viet Nam has instead stood out as a beacon of how to more with less.”(Fleming, Sean Viet Nam shows how you can contain COVID-19 with limited resources, 2020) In the limited resources, Vietnam is considered as the proactive country to cover the pandemic sooner than any other country By steady solution such as mandatory 14 days for anyone arriving in Vietnam and cancellation all the international flights Besides, all the nation addressing the supervisor of government for applying social distancing in 14 days as the good wheel to move to good result Technology: Industry 4.0 and technologies and their application can fight to Covid19 It can help in proper isolation of the infected patient, thereby reducing the spread of disease.(Javaid, M., Haleem, A., Vaishya, R., Bahl, S., Suman, R., & Vaish, A (2020) The best way to stave off the effects of isolation is to maintain contact with friends, family, and coworkers Zoom has quickly become a popular option to work and keep in touch with others in the midst of social distancing and shelter-in-place protocols https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/03/what-you-should-know-aboutonline-tools-during-covid-19-crisis) In tourism, we have known that, ITB is considered as the net-working place for all to work in tourism industry to exchange and trading It hosted normally for each year in the Feb However, ITB Berlin 2020 cancelled ITB Berlin 2020 will not take place Due to the rapid spread of the new coronavirus (COVID-19) the Federal Ministry of Health and the Federal Ministry of Economics have stated their opinion that ITB Berlin be cancelled (itb.com) Therefore, Zoom is appeared as the tools to save all the whole sale buyers and travel experts for discussing and trading Besides, Every school and education around the world had to close due to the risk of virus Government in every nation decided to apply the online course for student to learn, no need to take part in the physical class As such, we are able to see that technology seemed to another factor could help people reduce the intention to go out The impact of technology on Tourism during pandemic is supposed to be right hands As stated by China daily, according to “John Liu”, the executive vice-president and head of greater chins at Google, 85% of travelers their research on the internet about potential destinations and the average traveler does 55 online searches for bookings, travel guides and visas before a booking 2.2 Destination Management Company 2.2.1 A DMC (Destination Management Company) is a professional company which has a team of professionals who have expert knowledge and expertise with a wide network of resources for the implementation of tours, activities and events The DMC services often overlap some services provided by a Tour operator but they are not the same thing There are a number of differences between a DMC and a tour operator (Quora.com) The DMC not only saves time and efforts but money of the clients too It falls more reasonable to customize packages at a DMC than a tour operator The DMC researches about the destinations and their wide network of connections helps clients contact local tour operators during the travel It gives them access to vendors that the client would not be able to generally access directly at such reasonable prices The DMC also offers easy payment methods in instalments to the clients which the tour operators usually not have on offer The DMC also gives additional insurance policy for traveling to its customers and they can organize activities and events outside unlike a tour operator (Quora.com) This paper we mentioned about both DMC has been working for both of market such as Inbound and Domestic Companies that provide local assistance for tours arriving in their country or town are called Inbound or Receptive Tour Operators They are commonly used on international trips, particularly where language issues are part of the mix These companies make the local arrangements for airport pickup and delivery, arrange for activities, hire local guides, attend to all the details of the stay, and help in emergencies A Receptive Tour Operator could be a ground transportation company, or a Destination Management Company (DMC) Domestic Destination Management companies - responsible for developing, advertising, selling, and organizing the implementation of domestic tourism programs, undertaking entrustment to provide tourism program services for domestic guests; which have been included by international travel companies Vietnam Due to countries rely on domestic tourism as a tool to reduce poverty, improve infrastructure, create jobs and, most importantly, drive economic growth (WTTC, 2018) 2.3 Covid19 impacts on Local Destination Management Companies International arrivals to Vietnam in March 2020 were estimated at 449.9 thousand, decreasing by 63.8% over the previous month, of which arrivals by air decreased by 62.3%; by road decreased by 65.9%; by sea decreased by 83.6% Compared to the same period last year, international visitors to Vietnam in March decreased by 68.1%, of which arrivals by air decreased by 65.7%; by road decreased by 77.9% and by sea decreased by 55.2%; visitors from Asia decreased by 77.2%; from Europe decreased by 27.5%; from Australia, down 49.9%; from the Americas decreased by 67.9% and from Africa decreased by 37.8%.(Vietnamtourims.gov.vn, 2020) The accommodation facilities must be closed, employees of tourism industry unemployed Hotels across the country announced to close at least until April 30, such as the Silk Queen system, OHG System that owns * & * hotels such as Oriental Suites Hotel & Spa, O'Gallery Premier Hotel & Spa, O'Gallery Majestic Hotel & Spa or Thien Minh Group with high-class * Victoria hotel & ship chain, This makes tourism human resources lose jobs, companies, hotels and restaurants, in turn, have to reduce payroll by 60% At least until the end of June 2020, more than 80% of the workforce will not have a job If the situation is more difficult, the unemployment situation will surely last longer Revenue from the tourism industry decreased-Tourism is a comprehensive economic sector, involving many other groups, such as transportation, accommodation, catering services, etc., so the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic causes revenue of all groups also dropped Estimated tourism revenue in the first quarter was VND 7.8 trillion, accounting for 0.6% of the total and down 27.8% over the same period last year (the same period in 2019 increased by 13.2%) The reason is because many tourist attractions have to stop operating, a large number of domestic and international tourists have canceled tours due to fears of epidemics Some localities have reduced tourism revenue in the first quarter compared to the same period last year: Thanh Hoa down 49.9%; Ba Ria - Vung Tau decreased by 48.3%; Quang Ninh decreased by 47.1%; Khanh Hoa decreased by 43.9%; TP Ho Chi Minh City decreased 39.9%; Binh Dinh decreased by 24.4%; Da Nang decreased by 19.5%; Hanoi decreased by 18.7%; Hai Phong decreased by 14.9% Main factors that push the revenue is y destination management company It takes the role of selling as well as administrating tour packages based on the client’s needs like budget and the purpose of travel The DMC have close bonding and association with various tour operators to provide services to its clients once they arrive at the destination The tour operator on the other and provides the booking, transportation, meals and other needs of a travel package usually after the client arrives at the destination The DMC is like a middleman between the tour operator and the clients In short, we are able to see that all the number from statistic that curves the impact of Covid19 2.5 The challenge for people who works in Destination Management Companies The rapid emergence, scientific understanding, and NPI responses to COVID-19 evolved over about eight weeks, and tourism organizations struggled to understand the scope of what was going on: the uncertainty and dynamics of the pandemic and policy responses are exemplified by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) estimates of COVID-19 impacts on the sector These were revised considerably between early and late March A March 2020 UNWTO press release (2020a) predicted that the pandemic will cause international tourist arrivals to decline by 1-3 percent (as compared with 2019) rather than the expected rise of 3-4 percent (Hoque, A., Shikha, F A., Hasanat, M W., Arif, I., & Hamid, A B A [2020]) According to the General Statistics Office, the survey of enterprises affected by the Covid-19 epidemic and the local evaluation report on the labor and employment situation showed at, by mid-April 2020, nearly five million employees of our country was affected by Covid-19 (nhandan.com, 2020) Therefore, we aim for analyzing the impact of Covid-19 on Destination Management companies Since the pandemic crashed as the threat, all those transactions were postponed and even canceling due to people’s health Destination Management company is considered as the organizer to handle all the bookings for accommodation, creating the tour itinerary for both of GIT and FIT bookings The main market they from the very start until now is that in-bound market Inbound market is peak at most of the percentage from revenue of Vietnam’s tourism As such, it is considered as the loss for not only industry but also for Destination Management Company 2.6 The movement of Vietnam Tourism Market after removing Social Distancing On 23rd April 2020, Ho Chi Minh city and other cities as Hanoi, Da Nang opened after applying social distancing It is the big chance for tourism market coming back after dealing with long hibernation The tourism sector has devised tourism stimulus measures to revive the domestic tourism market, remove obstacles for tourism companies, and prepare to receive foreign visitors after the COVID-19 pandemic ends.( https://vietnaminsider.vn/vietnams-domestic-tourism-isnow-on-the-rise/) The Prime Minister instructed to promote domestic tourism and open international tourism when ensuring conditions allow stimulating domestic tourism, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism also initiated the plan "Vietnamese people travel to Vietnam" Many activities have been implemented, many provinces have actively stimulated industries such as Quang Ninh, Nghe An Previously, the conference "Golden time to discover Vietnamese beauty" was held successfully with 700 participants At the event, many studies and solutions were presented to overcome tourism, however, according to the Director General of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, to revitalize the industry, it needs many specific jobs, such as synchronous connectivity between locations Phuong, travel agency, hotel to resonate and spread ( http://baochinhphu.vn/Hoat-dong-Bo-nganh/Thuc-day-du-lich-noi-dia-phuc-hoi-du-lich-quocte-hau-COVID19/396166.vgp) As far as the international tourism market is concerned, according to Mr Khanh, Vietnam has many advantages when it successfully controls COVID-19, which is highly valued by countries "We need to take advantage of media impacts and current results to promote image and improve the efficiency of tourism in Vietnam," he said.( http://baochinhphu.vn/Hoat-dong-Bonganh/Thuc-day-du-lich-noi-dia-phuc-hoi-du-lich-quoc-te-hau-COVID19/396166.vgp) 2.7 Analysis of tourism need now in MASLOW’s Hierarchy and present solutions After the social gap, it means that Vietnam has successfully controlled the disease The government allows business companies, schools, business establishments, and transportation units to operate normally At that time, the tourism industry also made significant changes However, economic and socio-cultural activities are only conducted in Vietnam The border has not been re-opened; immigration and exit are still closed for signals of successful epidemic control from WHO This is a limitation for economic activities and especially for international tourism, which is considered as Vietnam's key economic sector, which continues to freeze activities back to normal People, especially Vietnamese citizens, have begun to pay more attention to financial control It’s not only a new opportunities but also new challenging for those who works in field this time This paper will be analyzing Maslow Hierarchy of Need as a literature review Pearce (1993) (Prentice, 2004) has identified three theoretical approaches to motivational psychology in tourism One of these, the travel career ladder, is based on Maslow's general motivational theory with a hierarchy of needs, and is part of a broader theoretical application In Maslow's hierarchy of needs (Maslow, 1943) there are at least five sets of goals that we can call basic needs (Figure 1) These are: physiological, safety, love, esteem, and self-actualization Maslow believed that human beings aspire to self-realization (Stephens, 2000) The needs that are usually taken as the starting point for a motivation theory are the so-called physiological drives A person who is lacking food, safety, love, and esteem would most probably crave for food more strongly than for anything else (Stephens, 2000) Holloway (1998) calls these needs basic needs, e.g food, water, air Hjalager and Antonioli Corigliano (2000) add that eating is a physical necessity but catering services and food images are also very important ingredients of cultural tourism If the physiological needs are relatively well gratified, consequently, a new set of needs emerge, which may be categorized roughly as the safety needs (Stephens, 2000) After analyzing the Maslow, we compared to domestic tourist’s demand in Vietnam, we are able to jump in the promotion for domestic market Since the demand of tourist rising but the budget is tide due people just peak at the level of physiological Many tourism businesses have "changed dishes", launched new product packages, with deeply reduced prices in the hope of stimulating tourism needs of the people, contributing to the tourism market to quickly recover When the situation of Covid-19 epidemic in the world is still complicated, the policy of developing domestic tourism is the goal that the tourism industry aims to create a "springboard" for market recovery According to Deputy Director General of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Ha Van Sieu, compared to every year, the number of visitors in 2020 decreased sharply, but the efforts of localities and units in reopening tourist sites; exemption, reduction of entrance fees, transportation has partly stimulated the tourism needs of the people In fact, the holiday season 30-4, 1-5 last, tourism activities in many localities have prospered Even, some tourist destinations occur with local overcrowding due to a large number of tourists, such as Da Lat, some beaches of the provinces and cities of Central and Vung Tau This is the driving force and is a favorable condition for tourism companies to build and introduce tourism products for this summer According to the research of the New Hanoi newspaper, many travel companies have completed tours for the summer, which are scheduled to be implemented from mid-May General Director of Hanoi Redtours Travel Company Nguyen Cong Hoan said that the company will carry out domestic tour packages with a deep reduction from 30% to 50%, of which the most notable is for family products family This package is formed by the cooperation of tour operators, airlines, 4star accommodation, and travel agencies to help travelers enjoy quality flights and accommodation; cheap, but still able to make the journey as you like According to Mr Pham Van Bay, Deputy Director of Vietravel Company - Hanoi Branch, the enterprise has completed the tourism products named "Vietnam - Welcome a new day" with an unprecedented discount and discount up to 50% for services Meanwhile, from the beginning of May, Hanoitourist Travel Company introduced tours to the Central region with "soft" prices, about 4-5 million VND Vietsense Tourism Company cooperates with shipping businesses to promote cheap road tour packages Saigontourist company introduced reservation service and self-sufficient travel with a discount of up to 20% Through this shows, tourism companies are actively implementing plans to rebuild the market 2.7 Vietnam Tourism Industry and the impact of SARS on 2003 SARS is a contagious viral respiratory illness which is now known to be a consequence of the corona virus and believed to be spread by vapor droplets, usually amongst people in close personal contact It can be fatal, but the mortality rate is not as high as originally thought and 774 have died out of a total of 8,098 people worldwide contracting the disease (CDC, 2004) The illness seems to have originated in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong at the end of 2002 and was carried to Vietnam by a returning businessman who had stayed at the same Guangdong hotel as an infected local physician The victim was hospitalized at the French Hospital in Hanoi and initially diagnosed as having atypical pneumonia on 26 February, but this was subsequently confirmed to be SARS Some of the staff who attended the patient caught the virus and there were 40 cases and five deaths at the hospital (WHO, 2003a) It is not surprising that SARS had an immediate effect on tourism across Asia as people were unwilling to travel, especially by air, for fear of catching the virus The worst hit areas were shunned and outbound travelers from these zones were subject to screening and restrictions Media publicity and formal warnings from governments and official agencies heightened perceptions of danger, sometimes out of proportion to actual risks (Pine and McKercher, 2004) This is demonstrated by Vietnam where tourism was damaged by cancellations of holiday and business trips, even though numbers afflicted by SARS were extremely small 2.8 Shall we learn the lesson form SARS to apply to Covid19 - Where will the tourism industry go after experiencing two pandemics? As we can see above, all those who works in Tourism Industry in Vietnam and hence DMC having pin-point related to Covid19 impacts on Tourism’s enterprise somehow Addressing the data which did put in this paper from sources in the internet or through academic journal, we are no longer in the positive frame-works compared to 2019 Some articles and influencer in this industry believe that this crisis that similar to SARS in 2003- This has damaged tourism around the world, but especially in those countries in Asia that are at the center of the epidemic Vietnam was one such destination of SARS for tourism there and the industry’s response to emerging challenges On 15 March 2003, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended an unprecedented travel industry, such as the need to postpone unnecessary trips to areas affected by SARS in order to reduce the spread of diseases through international tourism activities As noted by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), the SARS epidemic has significantly affected the number of international tourist arrivals in 2003, a 1.2% decline to 694 million In East Asia, the number of tourist arrivals decreased by 41% between April and April 21 compared to the same period in 2002 (http://itdr.org.vn/nghien_cuu/nghien-cuu-cac-giai-phap-nganh-du-lich-ung-phovoi-cac-tinh-huong-khung-hoang-do-dich-benh/) There were many fluctuations in the tourism workforce when there was no new hiring, no replacement of resigned employees, and businesses cut costs by requiring employees to take unpaid leave, leave first The choice of situation then stimulates the needs of local people for domestic tourism (Emma Clark, 2003 The peak of the boom months, the number of visitors to Asia and the Pacific decreased to 12 million, accounting for 9% compared to the previous year Up to 400,000 foreign tourists canceled tours to Vietnam in 2003 when the SARS outbreak broke out (Wilder-Smith, 2005) As we got to know, SARS happens in months but the consequence of this damages moving on for months with tons of lesson As such, this paper we will compare to SARS crisis on 2003 as the big lesson to resolve Vietnam’s Tourism after COVID 19 ends In the past, Vietnam seemed to cover the pandemic SARS was better than covering and controlling the COVID19 by applying the policy for banned the international flights and forbidden some countries as Taiwan and Korean to immigrate Thus, we understand that the spreading of SARS were not wider than COVID as around the world However, we learn from the past to find the new movement for industry Therefore, this paper is based on the lesson from Vietnam’s government used to apply in SARS to push up the demand of domestic: (http://itdr.org.vn/nghien_cuu/nghien-cuu-cac-giai-phapnganh-du-lich-ung-pho-voi-cac-tinh-huong-khung-hoang-do-dich-benh/) Regularly updated official and extensive information on health, epidemics and tourist situation for domestic and international tourists 2 Develop a strategy to prevent the negative impact of the disease on the tourism industry by giving highest priority to tourist safety Improve the effectiveness of domestic and international communication on safe destinations after the epidemic has passed the highest threshold and stimulate domestic and domestic markets Diversify the market; prioritize the domestic market and the remote market and the market with direct flight connection Establishing coalition to stimulate tourism 2.9 Development Research Question The existing literature has been assessed only to a limited extend of the topic due to the fact that they only focused mainly in how Covid19 impacts on Tourism in around the world and Vietnam In Vietnam, there was some previous study about Covid19 impacts on Tourism, but it focused on the general of information about the loss of Vietnamese Tourism and compared the revenue of last year with this year after the pandemic breaks down Moreover, it just gave an overview about general affected while this research aims to provide an insight into Destination Management Company, which is considered as those who bring the revenue for Vietnamese Tourism Therefore, this paper will address the gaps by not only approaching different factors that fit with challenging of DMC in affection of Covid19 by obtaining from various sources of literature but also focuses in Ho Chi Minh city – attractive destination in Vietnam for inbound As a result, four research questions are developed based on the gaps in knowledge and the research objectives mentioned in Introduction Chapter:      How have all the markets (in-bound and domestic) been before and after pandemic breaks out? What is the current situation of DMC in Ho Chi Minh during pandemic? What are difficulties and challenges of people who work in DMC facing? What are the challenges that Destination Management companies facing? What are the solution and plan for DMC in next time? CHAPTER METHODOLOGY 3.1 INTRODUCTION With the purpose of addressing the research questions mentioned above and fulfilling the objectives, the researcher decided to choose mix methods by integrating quantitative and qualitative approaches, using Web-based questionnaire and open-ended questions Since the aim of this paper is to find the impacts of COVID 19 on local Destination Management Companies, using a combination of the two methods not only help the researcher gain a deeper and broader understanding about the phenomenon but also minimize the weaknesses of each method (FoodRisc Resource Centre, 2018) To be more specific, online questionnaire is considered the best way to access to a large number of respondents (Rimer, 2017) and thus the results comes under statistic data can be easy to analyze In this case using Likert-scale also helps answer which is used to allow the individual to express how much they agree or disagree with a particular statement Furthermore, open-ended questions allow respondents to give more in-depth information about their expectation or recommendation for current situation now 3.2 RESPONDENT AND SAMPLES As the main goal of this study is to determine the factors influencing DMC, the targeted groups of respondents are Vietnamese people who work in DMC in Ho Chi Minh City Moreover, they have been working in DMC or they used to work as full staffs to face with this pandemic to handle the entire crisis during the past months because this research both focuses on initial challenging for resolving all those consequence of Covid19 somehow and their experience after and before Covid19 happens They can be either Vietnamese who are working and living in Vietnam or abroad, as long as they meet the above requirements Regarding the research respondents, it is expected to reach 100 respondents because it was impossible for the author to address the entire sample due to the limitations of time, accessibility and cost In order to meet the proposed sample, the researcher tries to distribute the survey through various channels such as Facebook, Instagram as well as other forums about sharing travel experiences in Vietnam Besides, the survey is posted on Facebook groups of DMC in Vietnam and travelling groups with the approval of Admins The researcher also received help from the project instructor in sharing to survey link to Vatel community and Hoa Sen students to approach broader participants as much as possible 3.3 QUESTIONARE DESIGN After defining the research objectives, a questionnaire is developed based on the literature review using a Google form survey and distributed to reach the targeted audience – DMC’s staff The researcher designed it in both English and Vietnamese to provide a clear understanding about the items or the questions in case any confusion occurs The survey includes six parts The first part is introduction which represents the main purpose of the study as well as the targeted participants and justification in using the information collected The second part has four questions relating to the organization structure of DMC such as L.O.T.O.L (Location, Organization, Target Customer, Level of Service) which serves as an access to determine a profile overview of DMC Then part three concentrates on the most recent hard situation of DMC of the respondents using both close-ended and open-ended questions The participants are asked about the challenging of handling the problem happening and hence the strategic plan to overcome through this situation Furthermore, how the Government’s action to control the COVID applied impact to DMC and what’s the policy and condition to have enough working capital to sustains The proposed impact of Covid19 are measured in adopted by different sources of literature using a five-point Likert scale These items are developed under dimensions Revenue, Working Capital, Main Market (Inbound/ Outbound/ Domestic), Human Capital (Table 3.1).) Table 3.1 Factor is affected by Covid19 Level of Attributes B.1 Revenue B1.1 B1.2 B1.3 Loss of revenue from Inbound market Loss of revenue from Outbound market Loss of revenue from Domestic market B1.4 Loss of revenue of MICE B2 Working Capital Overall B2.1 Loss due to accommodation cancellation fee of B2.2 Loss due to compensation to customers B2.3 Loss due to loan at the bank B2.4 Loss due to property rent B2.5 Loss due to maintenance fee B2.6 Loss due to paying staffs but there is not much to B3 Human Resources management B3.1 Impacts on trust and working attitude B3.2 B3.3 Affecting on income and salary Affecting on working days (many leave without pay) B3.4 Affecting on work (loss of jobs) B3.5 Affecting on psychology (stresses, worries) B3.6 Headache for compensation for labor cutting B3.7 Headache for reasonable wage reduction policy B4 Market Segment B4.1 B4.2 B4.3 B4.4 Danger of traditional market segment loss Danger of loss of frequent customers (due to no tours) Danger of loss of potential customers Danger of change to lower market According to Nemoto and Beglar (2014), Likert scale is psychometric scale that allows respondents to express their level of opinions, feelings or attitude towards a specific topic Moreover, the data generated from this technique not only can provide “highly reliable person ability estimates” but also lead to more valid interpretation (Nemoto and Beglar, 2014) Participants can rate their level of agreement with the items from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” The next part also uses the same technique to identify factors affecting the respondents when Covid19 break-down containing 30 items The last part is a open-ended questions to address the level of Covid19’s affection with DMC plus their recommendation for Vietnamese’s tourism as a service provider and management destination companies Participants are asked to rate their experiences after dealing with COVID19 in Ho Chi Minh from “totally disagree” to “totally agree” In addition, DMC’s management team can express their expectation as well as the inconveniences occurred during their experience by answering the two open-ended questions about their suggestions for Vietnamese’s Tourism and the level of covering the business before and after COVID spreads out The questionnaire is showed in Appendix A Before the questionnaire was distributed to the respondents, pre-test and pilot test were used to ensure the validity and reliability of the questionnaire Besides, these two methods also help find out any potential problems relating to the logical of the questions that could make participants be confused The survey was checked by the project instructor and sent to three other students for some advices to mitigate the possible mistakes They all commented that the introduction was too long and the researcher should shorten it by only focusing on the main purpose of the survey Furthermore, the researcher put too many items in part four which could make the respondents feel demotivated in completing the survey Another problem was the incorrect order of the sections; the demographic profile section was initially put at the end of the questionnaire whereas it should be the first part Some questions were changed or eliminated to be more suitable with the research context For example, the question “What’s the strategy applied for saving up the working capital?” was replaced by “Have you had some financial plan to reduce some irrelevant cost?” to determine the strategy for recovering business due to the impact of Covid19 After two times of revision by the project instructor, the content and wording of the survey were finally well-adjusted and ready to be officially distributed 3.4 Data collection and data analysis The data is collected through the online questionnaire which was developed by using Google Form - the most popular and convenience tool for researchers because of its free access and easy-to-use functions Moreover, Google Form can help summarize and analyze the data gathered by automatically linking to a spreadsheet in Google Sheet Excel where the analyzer can choose to display or manage data in several charts or graphs This software is very helpful in this case because the researcher can save a lot of time and cost without needing any advanced tools The proposed motivations in part four and the dimensions in part five are coded in specific numbers, and the collected responses are converted into percentages so that the researcher can analyze easily and more convenient in making comparisons The researcher will work directly on the data to come out with the results in relation to the most important reasons for the dominant factors affecting their company from Covid19 and their level of affection to answer the research questions 3.5 Discussion of research ethics In this research, ethical issues for the respondents require a high consideration in terms of assuring their confidentiality and privacy The survey should be approached politely and based on the voluntary of the participants with a clear communication so that the purpose of the survey is understood properly Furthermore, participants should be noticed that their answers and data will be respected and only used for educational purpose For the researcher, plagiarism avoidance is a must and the assurance of choosing and citing secondary data collected from reliable sources such as journals, books and websites should match exactly with the references and the original text in case of indirect citation Finally, researcher must promise to choose the right respondents to ensure the quality of the survey and reflect the collected data truthfully  ... first quarter compared to the same period last year: Thanh Hoa down 49.9%; Ba Ria - Vung Tau decreased by 48.3%; Quang Ninh decreased by 47.1%; Khanh Hoa decreased by 43.9%; TP Ho Chi Minh City decreased... http://baochinhphu.vn/Hoat-dong-Bo-nganh/Thuc-day-du-lich-noi-dia-phuc-hoi-du-lich-quocte-hau-COVID19/396166.vgp) As far as the international tourism market is concerned, according to Mr Khanh, Vietnam has many... period in 2002 (http://itdr.org.vn/nghien_cuu/nghien-cuu-cac-giai-phap-nganh-du-lich-ung-phovoi-cac-tinh-huong-khung -hoang- do-dich-benh/) There were many fluctuations in the tourism workforce