A WEB APPLICANTION FOR THE TOURISM INDUSTRY IN HANOI by Dinh Huu Son

A research study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration

A WEB APPLICANTION FOR THE TOURISM INDUSTRY IN HANOI by Dinh Huu Son A research study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration Examination Committee: Dr. Clemens Bechter (Chairman) Dr. Truong Quang Dr. Hans Stoessel Nationality: Vietnamese Previous Degree: Bachelor of Civil Engineering Hanoi Construction College Hanoi, Vietnam Scholarship Donor: Government of Switzerland Asian Institute of Technology School of Management Bangkok, Thai land April, 2001 i Acknowledgement I would like to express my sincere thankfulness to my research advisor Dr. Bechter Clemens for his invaluable advice and encouragement through out the research work. I also highly appreciate the research examination of Dr. Truong Quang and Dr. Hans Stoessel as well as their helpful and innovative ideas to enhance the value of the research. Now that I have finished the application, it’s time to stop for a moment to reflect and acknowledge those people who have made this research possible and successful. First of all, the most important thanks is due to Dr. Hans Stoessel and others in Swiss Vietnam AIT Management Development Program and Swiss Government who gave financial support to my study in AIT. When I think of one-year period living in AIT, I can not help but think of my family for their support and encouragement through my study in terms of both finance and mentality. I would like to express the deepest thanks and appreciation to my closest friend for her encouragement, to my sister for her help in the survey. Special words go to Mr Do Minh Phuong for his valuable ideas to my program. Finally, special thanks go to my classmates, those with I have been having great lives together in AIT. ii Abstract This research is carried so that the reality of tourism industry in Hanoi is understood. Several scopes such as banking, internet service etc. will be assessed. Most importantly, a qualitative survey is carried out to understand what tourists and foreigners who live permanently expect from a website for tourism purpose. Another qualitative survey of managers and officials of tourism industry is done to uncover their thinking towards Internet. What are their current problems of not launching internet as a competitive weapon. From the problems of “customers” and those of “suppliers”, we come to a solution of how to solve the conflict. An application (website) is created as the illustration of the solution. The business model can not be a perfect solution. Yet, it is worth looking at it so that further innovative ideas can follow. iii Table of Contents Chapter Page 1. 1 INTRODUCTION .1 1.1 BACKGROUND .1 1.1.1 Tourism industry in Vietnam 1 1.1.2 Internet in Vietnam .1 1.1.3 Level of participating in E-commerce of tourism companies .1 1.1.4 Hanoi .2 1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT .2 1.3 OBJECTIVES OF STUDY 2 1.4 SCOPE OF STUDY .3 1.5 METHODOLOGY 3 1.5.1 Survey methodology .3 1.5.2 Web development tools/languages .3 1.6 LIMITATIONS OF THE RESEARCH .4 1.7 ORGANIZATION OF THE RESEARCH .4 2. 2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5 2.1 INTERNET AND ECOMMERCE .5 2.1.1 Internet history 5 2.1.2 Commerce .12 2.1.3 Internet E-commerce overview 15 2.1.4 Benefits of Internet for E-commerce 16 2.1.5 Trading environment .18 2.1.6 Applications of E-commerce 23 2.1.7 Levels of internet exploitation 23 2.1.8 Towards E-payments .24 2.2 INTERNET IN VIETNAM .27 2.3 OVERVIEW OF LANGUAGES AND TOOLS USED FOR THE APPLICATION 27 2.3.1 Hyper text markup language (html) .27 2.3.2 Active server pages (asp) .28 2.3.3 Javascript 29 2.3.4 Microsoft access 30 2.3.5 Dreamweaver 4.0 30 2.3.6 Dreamweaver UltraDev .31 2.3.7 Photoshop 31 2.3.8 Fireworks .31 3. 3 RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 32 3.1 PROCESS .32 3.2 EXPLANATION OF THE RESEARCH METHODOLOGY 32 3.3 TARGET GROUP .33 iv 3.4 ATTRIBUTES 34 3.4.1 For general Internet Surfers 34 3.4.2 For tourists 35 3.4.3 For long term investors 36 3.4.4 For service suppliers – the main customer 37 4. 4 HANOI .38 4.1 GEOGRAPHICAL 38 4.2 TOURIST POTENTIAL .40 4.3 HANOI – POINT OF DEPARTURE TO NEIGHBORING REGIONS .41 4.4 THE DEVELOPMENT OF HANOI TOURISM INDUSTRY IN RECENT YEARS .44 5. 5 NEEDED FEATURES OF A WEB-SITE FOR TOURISTS AND PERMANENT INVESTORS (SURVEY FINDINGS) .47 5.1 SURVEY METHODOLOGY 47 5.2 SURVEY RESULTS (TOURISTS AND LONG-TERM INVESTORS) .48 5.3 SURVEY RESULTS (OFFICIALS IN TOURISM INDUSTRY IN HANOI) .50 5.3.1 Infrastructure 51 5.3.2 Web site promotion 51 5.3.3 The method of payment through network trading 52 6. 6 BUSINESS MODEL .53 6.1 OUTLINE MODEL 53 6.2 DETAILED MODEL 53 6.3 HOTEL BOOKING PROCESS * .56 7. 7 WEB DEVELOPMENT .57 7.1 RATIONALE .57 7.1.1 Service and normal features of a website .57 7.1.2 Hotel Booking 58 7.2 WEB DESIGN .58 8. 8 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS .60 8.1 THE ROLE OF E-COMMERCE FOR HANOI TOURISM INDUSTRY .60 8.2 LEVEL OF PARTICIPATING IN E-COMMERCE OF TOURISM COMPANIES IN HANOI .60 8.3 RECOMMENDATIONS .61 8.4 DIRECTION FOR FURTHER RESEARCH .61 v Chapter 1 1 Introduction 1.1 Background 1.1.1 Tourism industry in Vietnam In developing countries, tourism industry is often one of the important most industries that attract large amounts of hard currencies from more developed countries. On the way of development, VN is no exception. In early 1990s to the mid of the decade, the number of tourists coming to Vietnam increased by 30 percents. However, there was a decline of 10 percent from 1997 to 1999. There are several causes that are clear: • Infrastructure of tourism industry in Vietnam is not as good as those of other countries in region. Low quality service could be found everywhere. • Lack of information or instructions to places of beauty that tourists want to go • External causes like starting effects of the financial crisis in Asia and the declining of other currencies in the region, making it expensive to go to Vietnam. Yet, tourism industry is coming back to be attractive in the year 2000 with the number of tourists increased by 15 percent. 1 1.1.2 Internet in Vietnam Internet network was launched in December 1997. There has been 5 ISP so far including VNPT/VDC, FPT, Saigon Postel, Netnam and Vietel. The number of ICP is 15 providing mainly public medium of the Internet. The number of Internet users is growing fast including both individual users and enterprise side. With the amazing development of telephone, internet has been, is and is going to be a vital means of communication, of resource exchanging and most importantly, of doing business in Vietnam. 1.1.3 Level of participating in E-commerce of tourism companies At the current, there are some reasons that make the Internet unattractive to the tourism companies as lacking information and technical skill. As the result of unawareness of the opportunities from the Internet, the level of utilization of the new media stayed at the email and some advertisement with low information content from companies’ websites. But what foreigners want is not provided. Foreigners want to see concrete information referring to the 1 http://www.vietnamtourism.com 1 location, means of traveling, hotel booking, boat renting etc. But these kinds of websites just reveal mere information describing how beautiful the destination is. Therefore, the aid created by website establishment by tourism companies contribute little help to the development of the tourism industry in Vietnam. 1.1.4 Hanoi Hanoi is the capital of Vietnam. It is the second biggest city of the country, behind Hochiminh City in terms of size. With the advantage that it is the place where the government locates, Hanoi is the destination for many investors who are ambitiously seeking opportunities to make money. Besides, it is very famous for its rich culture with many historical and historic places as well as for its tranquil scenery… As the result, more and more foreigners are coming to Hanoi for the purpose not only of visiting but also of living permanently. It has another advantage to attract tourists. It is the location advantage. Due to the fact that there is only international airport, which is Noibai airport, in the North of Vietnam. So, every tourist wanting to visit beautiful scenes in the North of Vietnam has to visit this airport and Hanoi is the first city to stop by after going out of the airport. Those advantages above do make Hanoi an attractive place for an investment in the tourism industry. 1.2 Problem statement When surveying websites about Hanoi, I found that there are several websites. But not enough information is provided. The contents of those websites are advertising oriented. There are no websites to bring an over view of Hanoi but at the same time to give details about a large number of various services that can satisfy the needs of not only a fastidious tourist but also a permanently staying foreign investor. 1.3 Objectives of study • Identify various activities currently going on in Hanoi which are important to the needs and lives of tourists and those who stay permanently • Survey all service available; list important places with essential information including historical places, entertainment locations (in Hotel category, list all big hotels with number of rooms, room rates, address, etc.) • Develop a website providing the above information. Tailor to suit the needs of both short- time tourists and permanent investors 2 1.4 Scope of study The research/project mainly focuses on tourism industry in Hanoi. Survey is done to understand the most important needs of tourists/ investors. Then, another intensive survey is carried out to see what is available in Hanoi. Matching demand with supply is achieved by the creation of a Website that provides information about Hanoi such as information about historic places, hotels, restaurants, discotheques, supermarkets etc. More importantly, the website makes it possible for visitors to book online some of those services. 1.5 Methodology 1.5.1 Survey methodology An in-depth pilot interview is carried out first to understand general needs of a typical short- time tourist and a typical permanent investor. There are 15 in each category to be interviewed. So, there should be a total number of 30 people to take part in this study. All these people are selected arbitrarily. For understanding services available in Hanoi, secondary data is best. Sources of information can be taken from magazines, newspapers and the yellow book. Information from pilot interview may be useful for this part. However, it is necessary to validate all this information by contacting directly by telephone and site-surveying. Further, I carried out a small qualitative survey of officials in the tourism industry in Hanoi. The sample size is only 15. As mentioned above, the sample size for qualitative work is usually small because we do not need to have too accurate result while spending lots of time. 1.5.2 Web development tools/languages There are several tools/languages used in the website development. Here is the list of most of them. More are added later • Hyper text markup language (html) • Active server pages (asp) • Javascript • Microsoft access • Dreamweaver 4.0 and Dreamweaver UtraDev 4.0 3 • Photoshop • Fireworks 1.6 Limitations of the research The research is application oriented. Therefore, it can not avoid several setbacks. • Because only pilot work is carried out, the needs revealed in the research may not present the needs of the whole population coming and living in Hanoi. • The application developed may not be used to the full extent for other locations. Modifications should be made as the result. • The use or the outcome of the application is hindered by the difficult Internet accessibility, low speed of information transmission, and the high Internet use price • Many places do not offer its services online. Other have their own intranet. It is most convenient to provide a website with the customers interface and another interface for service suppliers to update their own database. So, there is no immediate link from the application’s database and the database of the suppliers. 1.7 Organization of the research • Introduction • Literature review Internet E-commerce Tourism industry in Hanoi Tools and languages • Needed features of a website for tourists and permanent investors (Survey findings) • Website development • Conclusion and recommendations 4 Chapter 2 2 Literature Review 2.1 Internet and Ecommerce 2.1.1 Internet history The Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications world like nothing before. The invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio, and computer set the stage for this unprecedented integration of capabilities. The Internet is at once a world-wide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location. The Internet represents one of the most successful examples of the benefits of sustained investment and commitment to research and development of information infrastructure. Beginning with the early research in packet switching, the government, industry and academia have been partners in evolving and deploying this exciting new technology. Today, terms like "bleiner@computer.org" and "http://www.acm.org" trip lightly off the tongue of the random person on the street. This is intended to be a brief, necessarily cursory and incomplete history. Much material currently exists about the Internet, covering history, technology, and usage. A trip to almost any bookstore will find shelves of material written about the Internet. The Internet today is a widespread information infrastructure, the initial prototype of what is often called the National (or Global or Galactic) Information Infrastructure. Its history is complex and involves many aspects - technological, organizational, and community. And its influence reaches not only to the technical fields of computer communications but throughout society as we move toward increasing use of online tools to accomplish electronic commerce, information acquisition, and community operations. Now, lets go back step by step to the history of internet. The first recorded description of the social interactions that could be enabled through networking was a series of memos written by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962 discussing his "Galactic Network" concept. He envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site. In spirit, the concept was very much like the Internet of today. Licklider was the first head of the computer research program at DARPA, starting in October 1962. While at DARPA he convinced his successors at DARPA, Ivan Sutherland, Bob Taylor, and MIT researcher Lawrence G. Roberts, of the importance of this networking concept. 5 [...]... Java, another powerful programming language, is bringing a whole new level of interactivity to the web Somewhere in between CGI and Java is Javascript, a language that is simple enough for programmers to use, but powerful enough to interact with web pages and Java applets Javascript is a widely used programming language for extending the capabilities of web pages Although static web pages are now fading,... feasible to maintain a single table of all the hosts and their associated names and addresses The shift to having a large number of independently managed networks (e.g., LANs) meant that having a single table of hosts was no longer feasible, and the Domain Name System (DNS) was invented by Paul Mockapetris of USC/ISI The DNS permitted a scalable distributed mechanism for resolving hierarchical host names (e.g... Internet channel very compelling for customers (Shikhar Ghosh,1998) • Bypass other in the value chain : companies may find they have little choice but to risk damaging relationships in their physical chains to compete in the e- channel The ubiquity of the Internet, the fact that anyone can link to anyone else, makes it potentially possible for a participant in the value chain to usurp the role of any... to get traffic Sending out a mail order catalog is another There is also advertising, word of mouth and even the guy in a chicken suit who stands by the road waving at passing cars! You need a way to accept orders At Wal-mart this is handled by the check out line In a mail order company the orders come in by mail or phone and are processed by employees of the company You also need a way to accept money... Microsoft access Microsoft Access 97 for the Windows® 95 and Windows NT® operating systems provides relational database power to give all information one needs to make better decisions It integrates data from spreadsheets and other databases and is the easy way to find answers, share information over intranets and the Internet, and build faster business solutions Corporate Web pages Sales figures and invoices... competitor’s web site? The answer is with Javascript One way to make a web site stand out is to use effects that make a site dynamic Rather than presenting traditional static information, which is what happens when HTML alone is used, web pages can be brought to life by using Javascript, an easy to learn scripting language Although many people believe that Javascript is hard to learn or are intimidated by the. .. makes sense to offer The idea of open-architecture networking was first introduced by Kahn shortly after having arrived at DARPA in 1972 This work was originally part of the packet radio program, but subsequently became a separate program in its own right At the time, the program was called "Internetting" Key to making the packet radio system work was a reliable end-end protocol that could maintain... (e.g www.acm.org) into an Internet address The increase in the size of the Internet also challenged the capabilities of the routers Originally, there was a single distributed algorithm for routing that was implemented uniformly by all the routers in the Internet As the number of networks in the Internet exploded, this initial design could not expand as necessary, so it was replaced by a hierarchical model... terminal and network to authorise the transfer of value from their account to that of a merchant; 25 • credit- card transactions These represent the automated capture of data about purchases against a revolving credit account, replacing what have hitherto been 'flickflack'-generated hard-copy vouchers * direct data entry transactions Direct data entry provides a less circuitous path for transaction data... operating system to have a chance to embed any new protocols in an efficient way Thus, in the spring of 1973, after starting the internetting effort, he asked Vint Cerf (then at Stanford) to work with him on the detailed design of the protocol Cerf had been intimately involved in the original NCP design and development and already had the knowledge about interfacing to existing operating systems So armed . A WEB APPLICANTION FOR THE TOURISM INDUSTRY IN HANOI by Dinh Huu Son A research study submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the. unprecedented integration of capabilities. The Internet is at once a world-wide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for