Marketing communication campaign of Vietnamtourism for international tourist lurement

LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: International tourist arrivals in 2012 Figure 2: International Market Share in 2012 Figure 3: The development of international arrivals to Vietnam from 2001 to

TR NG I H C M TP HCM UNIVERSITY LIBRE DE BRUXELLS

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY SOLVAY BRUSSELS SCHOOL

ECONOMICS & MANAGEMENT MMA6

Author

DO THE LONG & TRAN LE PHUONG QUYNH

MARKETING COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN OF VIETNAMTOURISM FOR INTERNATIONAL

TOURIST LUREMENT

MASTER PROJECT MASTER IN MARKETING & ADVERTISING

Tutor‟s name: SERGE BYWALSKY

Ho Chi Minh City (2013)

Our utmost appreciation is forwarded to Mr Kerry Kennedy – President of ITV Asia for his supporting in presenting ideas of the work

We appreciate Mr Pham Quang Hung – Director of Vietravel Northern Brand for giving us precious travelling documentation and comments on the project

Last but not least, our warmest thank to our dear friend – Mr Le Ha Tu – Assistant Cummunications of Nielsen Vietnam in helping us to design the logo of the campaign stated

in this work

I Overview of Worldwide Tourism Since 2008

II Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT)

1 VNAT Description

2 Achievements and Current Situation

3 Issues of Vietnam tourism

3 Advertising

3.1 The TVC of “Impressive Vietnam”

3.2 Message Design 3.3 Message Performance

3.4 Media Selection 3.5 Print Advertising 3.6 Out door Advertising

IV MACRO-ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS

II TOURISM PRODUCTS

III PRICE STRATEGY

I CAMPAIGN SUMMARY

II BRAND POSITIONING

III BRAND

1 Reason for choosing Vietnamese cuisine as Vietnamtourism brand and image

2 Reason for choosing target markets

IV COMMUNICATION PLATFORM

V COMMUNICATION OBJECTIVES

VI COMMUNICAION IDEAS

VII INTERGRATED COMMUNICATION EXECUTION

1 Advertising

1.1 TVC 1.2 Banner and Motion pictures 1.3 Print

1.4 Brochure

2 DIRECT MARKETING

2.1 Website 2.2 Social Networks 2.3 Google

3 Sales Promotion

3.1 Travel fairs 3.2 Contest

4 EVENT

4.1 Festival 4.2 Entertainment

5 PR

6 COMMUNICATION TIME FRAME

VIII BUDGET ALLOCATION

IX COMMUNICATION EVALUATION & MEASUMENT

CONCLUSION

APPENDIX

REFERENCE LIST

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: International tourist arrivals in 2012

Figure 2: International Market Share in 2012

Figure 3: The development of international arrivals to Vietnam from 2001 to 2012

Figure 4: The number of Tourist by Nationality in 2012

Figure 5: The number of Tourist defines by Purpose of visit in 2012

Figure 6: The Distribution of transportation modes in 2012

Figure 7: Total number of international visitors by countries in 2012

Figure 8: Logo, slogan and image of Vietnamtourism from 2000-2013

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ASEAN Association of Southeast Asian Nations

GSO General Statistics Office of Vietnam

MICE Meeting, Incentives, Conference, Exhibition

UNESCO United Nations Educational, Scinetific & Cultural Organization

VNAT Vietnam National Administration of Tourism

WTTC World Travel & Tourism Council

INTRODUCTION

Vietnam has many beautiful dreaming scenes, various cultures, unique cuisine, stable politics, friendly residents and many other potentialities for tourism development With these advantages, the country is supposed to get a larger number of international arrivals annually However, due to the lack of good marketing efforts, the country is still lagging behind many other neighboring destinations

This project will present the analysis of Vietnam tourism‟s campaign in 2009, and the recommendations on its branding, products and communication campaign,etc From threre, bring out a new and efficient tourism campaign to promote Vietnam tourism with the hope to introduce the country to global arrivals as a must-coming travelling destination

Last but not least, to ensure the effectiveness of the campaign, a measurement part is conducted at the end of the project

- Monotonous, low quality and less competitive services and tour packages

- Separate performance in strategic development and lack of co-operation amongst regions, areas, Ministry of Culture, Tourism, VNAT, and other tourism related

businesses

- Tourist length of stay too short time

- Tourist spending still low

- Tourist repeated rate are quite low

To solve these above problems, solutions such as focusing on building tourism products on variety and having more leisure forms and discovery should be brought out Also, it is important to focus on Culinary tourism, MICE tourism, Eco-tourism, Beach tourism, etc Having promoting regulations and policies to develop tourism and create close relationships among tourism related industries from Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism (MoCST) to locality for visitor comprehensive development MoCST need to propose the Government for larger budget to promote tourism Focusing on advertising and choosing suitable media, especially social means and developing official websites The following steps are taken into considerations: TVC (building four different video clips and one general clip), banner and motion pictures, print, trade fairs, contest, festivals, entertainment and PR

Through these steps, this project hopes to booster Vietnam tourism and bring more customers and financial benefits to the country

CHAPTER 1: DESCRIPTION

In 2009, total World's international tourist arrivals were 880 million with USD $852 billion in revenue Year 2009's profit was 0.7% less than 2008's In which, Europe lead in both arrival number and turnover (460 million international arrivals), which held more than half of total market share The 2nd winners were Asia and the Pacific region with 21% of the World's international arrivals and occupied nearly a quarter of total tourism income.; however, since late 2008, the number went down by 4.2% due to global economic crisis, affecting tourism receipts to drop by 5.7% Among the World's regions, Asian tourism seemed less being affected than of other nations It reduced by only 2% of international arrivals while other

regions suffered loss around from 5% to 6% (Source: World Tourism Organization- UNWTO)

In 2010, the improvement of global economy brought out an increase in the World's tourism situations Whole World international arrivals climbed up by 6.7% and increased by US $58 million revenue compared to 2009, reached 935 million arrivals and US $22 million revenue

more than the pre-crisis peak level in 2008, which was 913 million arrivals (Source:

UNWTO)

In 2011, despite an increase in uncertain global economy, political changes in Middle East & North America and natural disasters around the World International arrivals reached a record

of 982 million, an increase by 4.6% on 2010, while receipt grew by 3.8% to US $1.030

billion (Source: UNWTO)

In 2012, international tourism has continued to grow, despite global economic uncertainty remain, making a new record to reach over one billion international tourist arrivals on early December 2012 The figure cements tourism's position as one of the World's largest economic sectors, accounting for 9% of global GDP (direct, indirect and induced impact), one in every

12 jobs and up to 8% of the total exports of the World‟s Least Developed Countries (Source:

UNWTO)

Figure 1: International tourist arrivals in 2012

Source: UNWTO

As shown in Figure 1, international tourist arrivals surpassed 1 billion for the first time in

history in 2012 By regions, Asia and the pacific increased by 7% was the best performer,

while the sub-region South-East Asia and North Africa increased by 9%, and Central and

Eastern Europe increased by 8% topped the ranking

II

Figure 2: International Market Share in 2012

II VIETNAM NATIONAL ADMINISTRATION OF TOURISM (VNAT)

- Maintain average annual number of visitor growth rate at 20% year on year -Revenue increasing over 13%

year on year

- Everage GDP contribution at 12% year on year

By 2015, Vietnam will have a strong identity and worlwide awareness as one of leading country in culinary tourism.

Bring Vietnamese cuisine to the world

To be the leading country in culinary tourism in the world

It has full control in terms of business development, planning, public relations, personnel training, conducting research, instructing and inspecting the implementation of policies and other regulations in the tourism sector

VNAT has quickly grown up, it has build a stable organizational structure and overcome many difficulties from the early established day Along with the innovation of the country, the VNAT has prospered, rose to new management and development, achieved significant initial results, increasing both the size and quality, gradually confirmed the role and position of tourism management agency

2 Achievements And Current Situation

Over 50 years since the establishment in early 1960s, Vietnam tourism has being continuously developed step by step to participate in tourist activities of regional countries and on the World

Tourism business contributes a lot in the development of Vietnam economy Tourism activities create more than 1.4 million jobs in related business, helping to equalize economic opportunities throughout the country Tourism also help to improve the living conditions through the new infrastructure investment include airports, roads, sewage system, historical and cultural preservation, and environment conservation as well

Vietnam's tourist segments are expanded from East & South Asia, North America and Europe

to other continents To catch up a significantly increase in tourism demands, Vietnam has focused on developing hospitality and infrastructure In 2008, the country had 8,556 accommodations with total 170,551 guest rooms It also had more than 600 international tour operators By the end of 2012, Vietnam had total number of accommodations estimated at 13,500 accommodations with 285,000 guest rooms, including: 57 hotels 5 stars; 147 hotels 4 stars and 335 3-stars hotel The total of international tour operators are 1,120 companies Vietnam actively joined in cooperation of organizations; international and regional co-operation mechanism about tourism such as ASEAN, APEC, ASEM, UNWTO, PATA

As a result, tourism relationships with other countries have been improved and intensified e.g

“Passion Indochine” with Laos and Cambodia, collaboration commitments with Sichuan, Thailand, Egypt and Myanmar Additional, the country participates many tourism fairs and exhibitions while implements promotion activities

International visitors come to Vietnam was only as half as those to Philippines and one fortieth of Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand ten years ago Year by year, the distance has been shortened surpassed over Philippines The recent tourism's annual growth rate is about 20% To be detailed, there were only 2,3 million international arrivals to Vietnam in 2001 In

2006, it was up to approximately 3.6 million, then to more than 5 million in 2010 As

illustrated in Figure 3, the number of international arrivals to Vietnam had been upward fast

from 2001 to 2010, except a drop in 2009 due to the global economic recession

Tourism has played an important role in Vietnam's economy, in 2011; Vietnam generated VND 110,000 billion (USD 5.24 billion) in total tourism receipt and contributed to total GDP

5.8 % in 2012 (Source: Tourism Statistic, 2011)

In 2012, Viet Nam has welcomed and served 6.847 million international arrivals and 32.5 million domestic tourist trippers, gained revenue of 160,000 billion VND (USD 7.69 billion)

(Source: Vietnamtourism.gov.vn) This is a great encouragement for the efforts and

achievements of the tourism sector, confirming the role and position of the sector in the economic development of the country

2.63 2.43 2.93 3.47 3.58

4.17 4.53 3.78 5.05 6.01 6.84

0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1 1.2

Taiwan, 409.385, 6%

Cambodia, 331.939, 5%

Malaysia, 299.041, 4%

Australia, 289.844, 4%

Thailand, 225.866, 3%

France, 219.721, 3%

Singapore, 196.225, 3%

Rusia, 174.287, 3%

England, 170.346, 3%

Others, 1381.204, 20%

Figure 4: The number of Tourist by Nationality in 2012

According to the statistic, Chinese tourist is in the 1st ranking of foreign arrivals to Vietnam in

2012 (21%), followed by visitors from South Korea (10%), Japan (8%), USA (7%) and Taiwan (6%)

Figure 5: The number of Tourist defines by Purpose of visit in 2011 and 2012

Soure: http://www.vietnamtourism.com/e_pages/news/index.asp

By Air 5575.904 82%

By Sea 285.546 4%

By Road 986.228 14%

Figure 6: The Distribution of transportation modes in 2012

Source: http://vietnamtourism.gov.vn/index.php?cat=2020

The report of World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) in April 2011 claimed that Vietnam ranked 47th, 54th and 12th respectively in terms of the overall tourism development, the sector's contribution to the national economy, and the long-term (10-years) tourist growth

With temperate climate, stable politics, natural richness, antique architecture and amazing beauty of beach cities, the nation was honored to be chosen as many large and prevalent event destinations such as APEC Summit 2006, Miss Earth 2007, Miss Universe 2008 and Miss Earth 2010 and the forth International Fireworks Competition 2011, 2012

In mid-November 2010, PATA and Visa International Company surveyed on 7000 people at more than 10 countries and territories to bring out the announcement that the country is the destination favored by many international tourists, especially tourists from America, China, Australia, Russia, Singapore, Japan and Thailand In May 2011, TripAdvisor© - World's listed Ha Long Bay and Hoi An Antique Town in the "Top 25 Destinations in Asia" The

nation was also introduced in 50 Tours of a Lifetime (the sixth publication released by

National Geographic) which recommended "a 14-day-excursion" with "action-packed with quintessential Vietnamese experiences" Furthermore, Lonely Planet recently added Sapa in

Top 10 places to walk to be in amongst the World's best tourist attractions like the Mount

Cook in New Zealand, Grand Canyon in the U.S., Torres de Paine in Chile or Lake District in

England (Source: Lookatvietnam.com, May 2011)

In addition, according to tourism competitiveness index, Vietnam ranked 14 in the list of the most attractive destinations for developing the travel and tourism industry in the Asia-Pacific region in 2011 According to the results of the survey Global Travel Trends 2011, "The natural landscape, the promotional package tourist attractions as well as the political stability

is considered to be the main advantages to travelers are choosing to Vietnam in the future." Another survey of North American's largest travel firm Travel Leaders Group, the items voted for "The location is becoming" hot "in Asia, Vietnam received 48.3% votes of the forecast for this location Furthermore, in late 2012, Members of U.S Travel Association (USTOA) had predicted that Vietnam will become a second most favorable country in the world in "non-traditional" destination, after Myanmar, in 2013

3 Issues of Vietnam Tourism

Although Vietnam tourism grows with optimistic results and currently has the number of international higher some countries, it still lag behind many other Asian tourisms such as Indonesia, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia There are some issues for Vietnam tourism as following:

- Monotonous, low quality and less competitive services and tour packages

- Separate performance in strategic development and lack of co-operation amongst regions, areas, Ministry of Culture and Tourism, VNAT, and other tourism related businesses

- Tourist length of stay too short time

- Tourist spending still quite low

- Tourist repeated rate are low percentage

Figure 7: Total number of international visitors by countries in 2012

Source: Data collected from PATA

4 Case Description

From the Q4/2008, the number of international visitors to Vietnam strongly decreased down compared with the same period of 2007 And the total number of international visitors to Vietnam in 2008 only increased by 0.6% while Singapore increased by 4.8% , Indonesia & Malaysia increased by 13.3% These figures show the passive reaction of Vietnam tourism in decreasing rank compared with the nearby countries

In 2009, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) decided to launch the largest-ever promotion campaign with the hope to lure more foreign visitor to come to

Vietnam with targeted amount: 4.5 million foreign visitors and VND 78,000 billion (US$4.2billion) in revenue, named "Impressive Vietnam" in slogan " Charming Vietnam" and "Vietnam - the hidden charm" had been used since 2005

During this campaign, more than 300 discounted tours were released, including many tours for both foreign and domestic tourists with set price lists The tour programs are beach and island holidays, heritages sightseeing, visitting cultural and historical sites, biodiversity tourism (trekking, cycling tour, adventurous; sport tours (motorbike tours, diving) and luxury tour (resort relax, golf tour, cruising tour)

Nearly 100% hospitality facilities such as national flag carrier Vietnamairlines, hotels, resort, tour operators, travel agents, tourist transporting services, and souvenir shops joined in this special offer campaign with discounted prices from 30 -50% for visitors coming to Vietnam from January to September 2009 To support to this campaign, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung decided to cut 50 percent of VAT (Value added tax) for businesses, and travel agents which serve all-in tours, and tourist transport service

Furthermore, in May, VNAT announced that during the period of Impressive Vietnam, foreigner visitors who entered Vietnam on the campaign's package tours would be exempted from visa fees, it was effective from 15th May to the end of September They could visit

www.vietnamtourism.gov.vn/impressivevietnam to update promotional packaging information and book the services

The budget for the campaign was about VND 25 billion (USD $1.47 million) This time,

they made contract with the global BBC television channel, and the payment was US$ 204,000 for total 320 broadcasts, each was 30-second-spotfeaturing It featured a panorama of Vietnam and its people That was the first time Vietnam has promoted its national image globally through television To produce the program, a production team from the BBC visited the country to shoot scenes and select music The 30-second clip highlighted Vietnamese food, tricycles (Xich lo), water puppets, the traditional dress (Ao Dai), Hanoi architecture, Ha Long Bay and the floating market on the Mekong River Viewers have also been shown beautiful beaches in the central region, the customs of ethnic people in the northern hills and dynamic Ho Chi Minh City The clip has been broadcasted on BBC World News channel twice a day at 6.45 and 21.20 It was being shown 20 weeks from March 2009 to July 2009,

in which 6 weeks in Europe, 8 weeks in Asia and the Pacific, and 6 weeks in America It counted for total 200 countries throughout the World

Apart from television advertisements, the VNAT advertised on taxies on London streets from

the 1st July 2009 (Source: VOVnews, 2009) Vietnam signed a USD $30,436 contract to order

the 27 London black cabs to put an image of Vietnamese schoolgirls in Ao Dai and conical hats (Vietnamese people symbol) and the image of Ha Long Bay on their cars taxies with

slogan "Charming Vietnam" for six months

In more detailed, The Ministry of Culture, Sport and Tourism, Vietnam Airlines and the JATA (Japan Association of Travel Agents) had coordinated to attract more Japanese tourists to Vietnam by carrying out "Impressive Vietnam" in Japan Top Japanese travel agencies such as APEX, JTB and HIS also joined this campaign Many activities to promoting programs had held throughout may countries:

 Road show Melbourne, Australia as part of its global travel outreach series on 16st

February 2009

 Attend and performed at the Fair Tongtong - Holland (June 2009)

 Vietnamese Culture Week at UAF and night Vietnam in Belarus (July 2009)

 Road show in Beijing, China (August 2009)

 Vietnam Week in South Africa (August 2009)

 Vietnamese Culture Week in the United Kingdom (October 2009)

 Vietnamese Culture days in Laos (September 2009)

 Vietnam Week in South America (September 2009)

 Tourism Festival - Vietnamese culture in the U.S (December 2009)

A press trip with a group of 19 reporters, photographers of the leading travel magazines such

as National Geographic, Travel & Leisure, CNN Traveler, Voyage, Photographer, Lifestyle Travel Asia, Business Traveler, The Improper had invited to Vietnam to promote the campaign on April 2009

Besides that, the image of Ha Long bay and the legacy of Vietnam had appeared on the

UNESCO World Heritage Magazine - one of the only magazine specializing in world heritage

and highly reputed international scholars in heritage tourism

"Impressive Vietnam" campaign was also promoted by the presence of relay in Jetstar Magazine (Jetstar Airways) with over 1 million readers on all domestic flights in Australia, and international flights to New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia, Hawaii and Vietnam Besides the promotion page and an article about Vietnam's tourism magazine Jetstar ASIA of Jetstar Asia Airlines was also introduced and disseminated information about "Impressive Vietnam" in international flights of Jetstar Asia to Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia, China, Thailand, Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam

As a result, in 2009, the campaign saw a strong growth in the domestic tourist market This is

considered to be the most significant success The number of domestic tourist increased by 19% compared to 2008, reaching 25 million Total revenue was measured about VND

$70,000 billion (US$ 3.78 billion), 9% increased over 2008 However, Vietnam welcomed 3.8 million foreign arrivals only, 11% drop from the previous year

CHAPTER 2: ASSESSMENT AND CRITICAL REVIEW

The "Impressive Vietnam" had launched from January to September 2009, and had extended till December 2009 Through the campaign, many weaknesses, unprofessional and disadvantages of Vietnam tourism compared with other competitors had revealed As a result, Vietnam tourism had not reached an expectation number of international visitor as planned

I TOURISM BRANDING:

A brand is "a name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good

or service as distinct from those of other sellers", according to American Marketing Association, it is any label that carries meaning and associations

The reason that Vietnam has less foreign tourists than Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore is that it has not yet built both a successful tourism brand and a distinctive country's image to the world Hence, to build brand image and awareness, united and clear message, core values are essential parts in long term strategy for the tourism development

1 Positioning Vietnam tourism's image and core value

The country has not been successful in introducing to the world its beautiful landscape, friendly people with diversified and unique culture Impressive Vietnam spent tourism marketing budget into television advertisement on CNN, BBC, etc which did not bring out the best results due to lack of a unique image and a clear message It brought to the world two main memories which are Ao Dai and Ha Long bay However, Ao Dai seems less impressive

to foreigners than Kimono (from Japanese), or Hanbok (from Korean) With Ha Long bay,

UNESCO heritage, and one of the New Seven Natural Wonders of the World, could not make

a strong memory because lack of country promotion

Compared to Vietnam, other developed-tourism countries have a cleverly created and communicated images and messages for branding tourism and the whole country They have their own "words" so that when people say about these words, they immediately think of the nations For instance, Thailand was successful in creating its brand image of "exotic, fun, and friendly people" The first two words imply distinctive entertainment Another success is Singapore with “Shopping Paradise” image has embedded in many visitor‟s memory

In other word, it is the core values the countries would like to offer to visitors On the other hand, potential visitors did not see the core values of Vietnam tourism campaigns Even though its cuisines are loved by many foreign visitors and proposed to be a competitive advantage for Vietnam tourism by Kotler (The SaiGon Times 2011), and Ha Long Bay which

is supposed to be the must-visit destination, the nation still cannot strike potential visitors with those

2 Visual design

During the last ten years, Vietnam National Administration of Tourism has changed slogan and logo four times They are Welcome to Vietnam (since 200 to 2005), Vietnam - Destination for The New Millennium, Vietnam - The Hidden Charm (since late 2005 to 2011) and Vietnam- Timeless Charm (from 2012) These are general and unfocusedly used,

compared to other countries with Amazing Thailand, Uniquely Singapore, Your Singapore (2011), Malaysia, Truly Asia, Incredible India, Visit Indonesia and Wonderful Indonesia

(2011)

Figure 8: Logo, slogan and image of Vietnamtourism from 2000-2013

The incoherency in Vietnam tourism's slogan and logo affects negatively to tourism branding Malaysia used "Truly Asia" for a long period and only added subheading which followed the main slogan, as in accordance to purpose and theme of each campaign, without completely change into another one Hence people memorize the brand much more than competitors Additionally, Vietnam tourism‟s logo- a lotus is considered to be not clear It is hard for foreigners to realize that it is a stylized lotus and its meaning as a result of lack of culture promotion

II TOURISM PRODUCTS

Vietnam has only 15% of repeated visitors; it is too few compared to the giant competitor Thailand One of the reasons for this disappointed result is of the monotonous and low quality tourism products (Ha Noi Moi, September 2011) Following tourism experts, Vietnam tourism's products are like "stick shape" which means that when visitors come to Vietnam, especially groups, they just to travel from North to South or South to North in 15 days then finish, and they do not have a need to come back, because they can visit all famous tourism spots at their first time visit

Thailand is different, if visitor wish to visit North to South, it take one month to visit, Thailand tourism devided into various routes to visit Visitor visit Pattaya takes 6-7 days, Phuket takes 4-5 days, Bangkok 3-4 days…Thailand's tourism products like "blooming flower" and then "tie" visitor come to visit many times

Generally, the tourism products in the "Impressive Vietnam" are quite monotonousness and low quality Many tour operators have the same products and concentrated on the most

popular destinations The tour programs are mainly in beach and island holiday, heritages

sightseeing, visiting cultural and historical sites, biodiversity tourism (trekking, cycling tour, adventurous; sport tours, and luxury tour Vietnam tourism's advantage is the nature-based beauties lying the country length and a long lasting cultural and historical background However, stunning natural beauty or common cultural sightseeing are not the only factors that creates tourism success because it lack of fun and leisure activities These fun and leisure activities mainly push for 5-star hotels, resorts and golf courses which can attract a limited number of high income people only, while Vietnam have entirely ignored a diversity of other more affordable activities such as adventure sports, walking tours and theme parks

Furthermore, In "Impressive Vietnam", the local culture had not been effectively exploited, especially activities for foreign visitors Many countries in the world have been successful exploited their local culture, example: Bull-fighting in Spain, or Oktoberfest in German Through these activities, visitors can mix with local people to experience and enjoy their feeling Vietnam's nature landscape and cultures are not inferior than others competitors, but how to promote them and how to "sell" this feeling to visitors are the most important things

III COMMUNICATIONS

1 Direct marketing

1.1 Website

Vietnam tourism official website www.vietnamtourism.gov.vn/Impressivevietnam was mainly

about tour programs, list of tour operators, destinations, travel guide and some upcoming events and festivals, culture, weather, news, promotions, etc., they are complicated, confusing and generally not user-friendly It was old-fashioned, tedious and uninspiring due to lack of interactive features, spectacular gallery and exciting content In addition, "Impressive Vietnam" was advertised in many country and regions, Vietnam also has become a global tourist destination, but the website only had 5 languages: Vietnamese, English, Chinese, Japanese and French

Look at some other tourism sites of competitors such as Malaysia and Thailand, they have more than 20 languages to attract their targeted markets

Furthermore, there was no button linked to any social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Myspace found on the official site These will be the best channels to remind people to launch new campaign and update upcoming events, festivals but they were not be integrated into the website

Key findings:

 Vietnam tourism official website was not user-friendly It was old-fashioned, tedious and uninspiring Moreover, the website had only 5 languages, not suitable

to a global promotion campaign

 There was no button linked to any social networking such as Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Myspace found on the official site to remind people to launch new campaign

2 Sales Promotion

2.1 Travel fairs:

The travel fairs are mainly activities for sales promotions in “Impressive Vietnam” There were many representatives of Airlines, hotels, tour operators participated in international travel fair, but they rarely associated to establish an impressive "Zone of Vietnam" at the fairs They used to make a separate stall to advertise for their products and services They put their stall in a separate corner of the enterprise at a different angle with very little images, poor information about Vietnam Even some employees of these stall in the fair had sold souvenirs

to earn a little money to buy gifts instead of actively provided travel information about Vietnam tourism, and their business

Meanwhile, Most countries participated in the international tourism fairs usually rent a private area with special design, their overall picture presented a professional manner of their culture There were exhibition area, related tourism business companies, and general area introduce their culture, cuisine, art shows, fashion, etc

2.2 Contest:

There's no contest, games and competitions through official website or social network for

"Impressive Vietnam" Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, they had made very well these and attracted a huge of people participated in It was a creative way to spread over brand awareness and make a successful campaign

For example, in "Amazing Thailand 2009", Thailand had made a online contest "Ultimate Thailand Explores" through home page: www.ultimatethailandexplores.com, from 15 Sep

2009 to 15 Oct 2009, every 2 people group made one- minute clip, explaining why they had chose to come visit one of five beautiful spots in Thailand, and how they will spread the clip

to over the world Finally, there were about 300 teams participated in the contest, and attracted about 25 millions views in over the world

Key finding:

 Separate performance of Airlines, hotels, tour operators participated in international travel fair they rarely associated to establish an impressive "Zone of Vietnam" at the fairs

 Lack of contest, games and competitions through official website or social

networks for brand awareness and successful campaign

3 Advertising

3.1 The TVC of "Impressive Vietnam"The commercials had not suitable for a small

tourism budget of the nation's tourism Impressive Vietnam's budget was 25 billion VND (1.47 million USD), many times smaller than Malaysia's (US $80 million for Cuti-Cuti campaign) and Thailand's (US $70 million for campaigns in 2009) Only for the clip "Truly

Asia" Malaysia had invested nearly $ 1 million (Source: Malaysia tourism report 2009)

The weakness is lack of a long-term promotion strategy With small funds, this campaign did not last long enough for the message to be on expensive channels such as BBC and CNN

3.2 Message design: In 2009, the promotion video clips of Vietnam were like images united

carelessly that made unfocused and pell-mell's feeling The Vietnam tourism's commercial lasted about 30 seconds with a voice-over to sing the praise of the beautiful scenes and culture of the country, although they were produced in different periods and different purposes, had nearly the same format and content The similar puppetry, daily life at outdoor market and float market, highlands, ethnic minority, beaches, food and images of the Vietnamese all presented by them To repeat the same content over several advertisements without a key point was to waste of money and could not speak up the Vietnam tourism differentiation against competitor creatively Moreover, they were not exploited to be advertised in advertising though Vietnam is known to be rich in traditional culture and natural landscape, particularly beaches The fleeting 30 seconds was surely not long enough for Vietnam to present these all respects thoroughly since tourism is a multi-faceted; and also for audience to go through a process of pay attention - grasp information - feel it - then,

remember it and take action

One minute is the at least average duration for tourism commercials of Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore take to display major destinations as well as to be able to build a compelling plot with high convincingness Moreover, the commercials of Vietnam just simply introduced landscapes, traditional entertainment or local dishes which might be viewed as the same as other Asian countries in the eyes of foreigner Beside the unique culture and beautiful landscape, it is better to show what travelers would get when they made a holiday to somewhere In contrast, it is fundamentally to find out which other motivations or purposes are to decide some places for holiday whereas there are many choices floating around and they are all nearly the same

The commercials in "Impressive campaign" repeated the same content for different regions and countries was not suitable for many different purpose and segmentation while owing to the fact that tourism is the largest industry and people have different purposes to travel

3.3 Message performance: According to Kotler et al., 804, advertising effects depend not

only on message contents but also appearance which should be a good combination of tone, style, tone, format and words In this sector, Vietnam tourism messages has problems, too They are confusing and less emphasis Although the slogan Vietnam - The Hidden Charm was officially used until 2011, there were four commercials used with different messages:

"Vietnam - The hidden charm" in 2005, "Charming Vietnam" in 2009 and "Vietnam - Your Destination" in 2010 Meanwhile, Malaysia used the slogan "Malaysia - Truly Asia" in every commercial in 2011 by sticking to the word „Asia' at taglines to both depict Malaysia's notable tourism aspects and highly support for Malaysian message, as examples are Your Nature Adventure Asia, Malaysia - Your Blissful Escape Asia, Your Multi-Cultural Asia, Your

Glitz & Glamour Asia

3.4 Media selection: The fact that CNN and BBC selected for Vietnam tourism promotions

was a less effective method Those channels are for audiences who mainly interested in politics and economics matters rather than cultures and travelling Malaysia and Thailand advertised on sport channel ESPN, Star Sports (Datviet News, 2009) Also, Luxurytravelvietnam.com claimed that the broadcast on CNN was not effective for Republic

of Korea, Japan and China markets because tourists from these mostly did not see channels in

English language

3.5 Print advertising: Vietnam tourism had advertised in many famous magazines in the

word It was an effective way when "Impressive Vietnam" had a tight cooperation with many famous magazines in the world and Jestar Airway to introduce and promote the campaign However, it lacked of brochures and flyers for its target markets in abroad

3.6 Outdoor advertising: In 2009, Vietnam had advertised on 27 taxis in London within 6

months It was not effective way because taxis are small and run very fast Moreover, There were 10.000 taxies in London at that time, so with only 27 taxis, it could not made a high awareness This is partly due to the lack of promotion budget Hence, Vietnam needs to pay more attention to media selection to get a higher effectiveness

Key finding:

 Vietnam tourism's commercial lasted about 30 seconds was too short It repeated the same content over several advertisements without a key point and could not speak up the Vietnam tourism differentiation against competitor creatively

 Advertising on CNN and BBC was a less effective method Those channels are for audiences who mainly interested in politics and economics matters rather than cultures and travelling

 Lacked of brochures for the campaign in targeted markets

 Vietnam had advertised on 27 taxis in London within 6 months It was not effective way and wasted money as there were 10.000 taxies in London at that time

IV MACRO-ENVIRONMENT ANALYSIS

To understand in detailed how macro-environment affects market and industry of Vietnam tourism, PESTEL is used to analyze

1 Socio-culture:

Vietnam has more than 54 minorities attributing to the various cultures (also including many special historical events) of the nation Every minority has their manners and customs specialities and live in different areas which are more and more introduced in many exhibition, trade fairs and festivals As a result, the country is an ideal place for international tourists to visit for discovering new different lives, from the mountains to the lands and seashores

Furthermore, with the large number of minorities, food dishes are created under various forms Hence, international arrivals are able to contemplate the unusual excellence of various food dishes when arriving

Moreover, in 2012, Vietnam population was 87 million people and became the 13th most crowded country in the World (Source: BaoMoi 2012), this number will have been increased

up to 90 million in 2013 (Source: DanTri 26st December 2012) and by 10 million in the next nine years (Source: BaoMoi 2012) With an increase in population in short time, the country

is supposed to have plentiful human resources working in tourism

To be short, the various in social and cuisine cultures attract overseas visitors to come to Vietnam and help increase income for the country's tourism And, an increase in population ensures human resources serving in hospitality industry to be stable

2 Legal:

There are legal allowances to reduce the hospitality prices to attract more visitors by launching promotions and discounted programs Decreasing the prices without being admitted as a dumping criminal is an advantage This is to get more customers for Vietnam tourism and hence increase the income for the industry

Also, health and safety and employment laws are adapted (eg Forbidding children under 18 years-old to work, law of pregnant women, etc.) to help serve the visitors in proper manners Hospitality legislation for business license (including hygiene, fire regulations, etc.) is used to protect arrivals from dangerous probabilities

All of these above factors bring safe feelings to arrivals, bring them back to the country later

on and make them introduce to their friends about the nation's tourism

3 Economic:

The current heavy crisis of the global economy has a negative impact on Vietnam tourism People around the world have lost their jobs so got no income Therefore, they need to save money for living rather than spending for leisure As a result, the country's tourism gets less customers than its expectation

4 Political:

The freedom development of trade by WTO to Vietnam has led to a greater level of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the nation When arrivals come to the country, there are large possibilities that these people will combine business with travelling Hence, this is a manner

to bring more customers to the country's tourism

Moreover, Vietnam is a place with stable politics, at least a safe place without shooting by reactionaries (terrorism) Its relationships with neighbor countries such as Thailand, Singapore and Hong Kong are maintained well, too Also, the country does not restrict people

in any religious Hence, arrivals feel safe for their leisure trip here

5 Technological:

Modern technologies are being applied in hospitality industry from small to large areas From small, for example, in restaurants, modern cooks are used for faster and hygiene serving, electric cashiers are used for faster and more accurate billing calculations On the beach, many facilities are adopted to bring more leisure kinds for visitors (canoes, surfing things, etc.) And to be large, for instance, new environmental technologies are used to clean sand-banks, sea-sides, sea waters and forest; infrastructure is developed such as more new bridges and highways for shorter distances which make traveling journeys easier and less tired, etc Moreover, E-commerce is being developed and used widely to generate income for the tourism by advertising These affect positively on Vietnam tourism as its customers will think

of the country as a clean and well-service-provided destination

6 Ecological:

Last but not least, another factor affecting Vietnam tourism is ecological With 48.3% forest

areas (year 1945, Source: HoiTrongRung n.d.), the country is the wonderful home for various

animals and brings out the clean atmosphere This is already an advantage of creating a peaceful impression to international arrivals

V SWOT ANALYSIS

STRENGTH

- Vietnam is a country lying in the

peninsula of South Asia and holds great

potentials of nature and culture-based,

landscapes, particularly beaches with

many heritages recognized by UNESCO

including tangible and Intangible

heritages

- Known as a peaceful country with stable

politics and constant economic growth

This is a safe place for travelling and

business establishment

- Has diversity of culture with 54

minorities

- Vietnam is a very large food culture

gathered from various minorities

- Digital develops in the country

- Unmanageable hygienic state

- Vietnam has not yet built a successful tourism brand as well as distinctive country's image to communicate to the world

OPPORTUNITY

- Beautiful landscape

- 54 minorities contributing various

cultures

- WTO brings more opportunity to foreign

investment which is useful in

word-of-mouth advertising strategy for Vietnam

tourism to foreigners (from business to

leisure

- The nation is located in Asia Pacific

where tourism are developing

significantly

- PATA operates more and more focus

- Tourism is a global popular trend,

international tourism develop continuous

and is an industry with high recovery

- Instances of crimes (Theft, robbery, etc.)