TRUONG ĐẠI HỌC MỞ TP.HCM UNIVERSITE LIBRE DE BRUXELLES
HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY SOLVAY BUSINESS SCHOOL
MBMMS3
NGUYEN THI THU THUY
MARKETING STRATEGIES FOR
ATTRACTING INTERNATIONAL TOURISTS: CASE OF BEN THANH TOURIST COMPANY
MASTER PROJECT
MASTER IN BUSINESS & MARKETING MANAGEMENT
Project Tutor: Prof., Dr NGUYEN DONG PHONG Ho Chi Minh City
(2010)
Trang 2STUDENT DECLRARATION
«The Université Libre De Bruxelles - Solvay Business School and The Ho Chi Minh City Open Univeristy is not responsible for any argument, data or statement contained in this final project These are only binding upon their author »
Ho Chi Minh City, 25 November, 2010
Trang 3ACKNOWLEGEMENTS
My sincere thanks to Prof., Dr Nguyen Dong Phong, who has given useful and practical instruction to help me to finish this final project I would like to express my sincere thanks to all professors of Solvay Business School who taught me during the courses at The Ho Chi Minh City Open University And my sincere thanks to Mr Bui Quang Son (PR Marketing Manager of Ben Thanh Tourist Company) for his kind assistance
Nguyễn Thị Thu Thủy, MBMM3
Trang 4COMMENTS FROM THE THESIS TUTOR
Student: NGUYEN THI THU THUY
Thesis: MARKETING STRATEGY OF BEN THANH TOURIST COMPANY
Tutor: Associate Professor Doctor NGUYEN DONG PHONG
The structure of the thesis is rational The analysis of the thesis is scientific, in detail Based on this, the thesis have given Marketing strategy of Ben Thanh Tourist Company It is necessary for Ben Thanh Tourist Company to research and apply this marketing strategy to improve
business activities in the future
During the writing time, the author has shown his scientific, creative and diligent spirit
I suggest the committee should give permission for her to present it to your kind consideration
Ho Chi Minh City, 15 November, 2009
(signed)
Trang 5TABLE OF CONTENTS ¡2.9000 00À408.100./0 0/7 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION - sec cc cĩ Ăn 2S S2 105011056 56% 3 INEC 2v )000 0000) 0) 0) 0 e6e6ố 3 IVAwy) 20810 0 eee6e6ố 3 I0) he eeẰee 3 1.4 MethodolÒy co o so so CC 9 9 9 9 9 9 9 90 0 0 9 9 9 9 9 6 9 9© 9 9 9 9 9 9.00 6600 0.19 9 6.6 00806 4 CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMWORRK -c sec c << SS°e 5 PM U81 ‹ 0n nố 5
2.2 Marketing strategy for fOUFilSI ‹ « « co s se c c5 S2 S06 60609050306 609 60 060 66 6.1 6 5 CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT BUSINESS PERFORMANCE OF BEN THANH TOURIST COMPANY .cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccces 9
3.1 Overview of Vietnam’s Tourism Market cccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccccce 9 3.1.1 Factors 1nfluence the attraction oftourIsfs 9
3.1.2 Analysis of outcomes of Vietnam”s tourism 1n attracting mternational
Quests IN recent V€aTS L2 3.2 Introduction of Ben Thanh Tourist Company sccccccecccccecccccscccecs 13
Trang 63.2.2 Analysis the current business performance of Ben Thanh Tourist
Company c2 l4
3.2.3 Marketing activities of Ben Thanh Tourist Company 15
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4.2 Marketing segmenting, pOSÏ(ÏiOnÏng e «sec c cĩ S S S n1 1 S1 111 S51 s5 22
4.3 SWOT anallySis he6eẰeố 23
4.3.1 Internal factors analysis (Strengths and Weaknesses analysis) 24 4.3.2 External factors analysis (Opportunities and Threats analysis) 25
4.4 Formulating marketing Objectives ccscccccscccccecccccccccccecccccscececes 27 4.5 Marketing Mix Strategies .cccccccccsccccsccccccccccccccccsscccccssscccsscsses 27
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REFERENCES
Trang 7LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 1: Malcolm McDonald’s marketing planning process
Figure 2: Rate oŸreturn c2 c2 22 c2 vn nà nà: LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Numbers of international tourist to Vietnam in the past 10 years
Table 2: The results of the company business in 5 years (2004 — 2008)
Table 3: What is your purpose of your vIsif?
Table 4: Whom do you spend your holiday with?
Table 5: How do you know Ben Thanh Tourist Company?
Table 6: Did you make your reservation in advance?
Table 7: Ben Thanh Tourist reservation SerVIC©
Trang 8EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Nowadays, the trend towards globalization and internationalization of business has strong impact on companies’ strategy When a company is thinking about entering new markets, it needs to pay attention to variable aspect on micro and macro level Ben Thanh Tourist Company is a unit attached to Ben Thanh Cooperation (Sunimex) with abbreviation name Ben Thanh Tourist From the establishment in 1989 until now, Ben Thanh Tourist operates mainly
in traveling, restaurants, and hotels, services In recent years, most of international tourists
booking tour with are from US, Europe and some key Asian countries such as Japan, Chinese, Korea, etc We can see a very clear perspective of a new flow of international arrivals from those markets choosing Vietnam as their destination for holidays Ben Thanh Tourist has to catch off this one-off opportunity Therefore, the author decided to choose the project subject “Marketing Strategies for attracting international tourists, case of Ben Thanh Tourist company” as the graduation project The prioritized objective of this project is to attract more international guests by analyzing the four elements of marketing mix The 2011-2012 marketing strategy for Ben Thanh Tourist Company is developed on the basic of increasing the number of international tourists and the revenue The aim of the marketing strategy is to ensure maximum effectiveness of promotional activities in order to strengthen and enhance Ben Thanh Tourist’s position as one of the leading tourist company in Vietnam
Trang 9The author organizes the project into three chapters in which each chapter deals with the specific aspects of the project The author explains each chapter and its relevance below: Chapter 1 will introduce the theoretical framework of tourism and tourism marketing In this chapter, the marketing tourism is defined with its major characteristics It also introduces what tourism marketing strategy is This is a foundation for next chapter
Chapter 2 is the analysis of the current business performance of Ben Thanh Tourist Company This first part of this chapter 1s overview of Vietnam’s tourism market In this part, the author will present the current performance of Vietnam in attracting international guests in recent years and analyze some factors influencing this effort The second part is to analyze the business performance of Ben Thanh Tourist Company in recent years and its marketing
activities
Chapter 3 is the core one of this project In this chapter, the author combines the theoretical framework in chapter 1 and the marketing activities of Ben Thanh Tourist in order to present the marketing strategy for attracting international guests In this chapter, the author applies
Trang 10CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 General information
Tourism not only creates a good economic source but also affects many social aspects, especially job creation and poverty reduction for the people Vietnam is not exception Vietnam is a beautiful South East Asian country, locating in the Indochina peninsula, with rich culture, stunning landscape and charming people It is considered very much potential for tourism industry, but there is still lot of room for development If we compared to some of our neighboring countries such as Thailand, Singapore or Malaysia, we have gain very small revenue from tourism sector Therefore, we have a lot of things to do to gain the bigger proportion
Ben Thanh Tourist Company is a unit attached to Ben Thanh Cooperation (Sunimex) with
abbreviation name Ben Thanh Tourist From the establishment in 1989 until now, Ben Thanh
Tourist operates in traveling, restaurants, and hotels, services and trading, import and export and development investment services
1.2 Problem statement
Once the Tourist Company has take the marketing activities into their consideration to run it efficiency and to gain a competitive advantage over the competitor, Ben Thanh Tourist Company should create sustain marketing strategies over the additional service Therefore, the problem statement can be stated as ““What should be marketing strategies for Ben Thanh Tourist Company to attract more international guests?”
1.3 Objectives
Trang 11indicators to formulate the objectives and strategies The following questions are addressed: - How to attract international guests by analyzing marketing mix
- What is the company’s core competence and market position compared with its competitors? - What are the strengths and weakness to improve the operating performance?
- What are opportunities and threats to minimize the risks?
1.4 Methodology
Population: International tourists make reservation via Ben Thanh Tourist Company
Collecting data tools: Newspaper, e-journals, textbook, e-books, questionnaire, observation
Questionnaire: The questionnaire used 1n this thesis includes 12 questions Analysis tools: Descriptive analysis and statistical test
Method: Survey
Trang 12CHAPTER 2: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 Tourism marketing
The marketing concept is the heart of good marketing management today Tourism organizations that apply the marketing concept to find out what the consumers want and needs All the government agrees that tourism is the largest industry in the world and also the one that has growth rapidly Rising income in tourism industry is considered as a positive aspect in a country
“Tourism marketing can be defined as the management process through which tourist organizations identify their selected tourists, actual and potential, and communicate with them
to ascertain and influence their needs, desires and motivations on local, regional and
international levels, in order to formulate and adapt their tourist products accordingly in view of achieving optimal tourist satisfaction and maximizing organizational goals” (Stephen F.Witt and Luiz Montinho, 1999, Tourism Marketing and Management Handbook, Prentice Hall International, page 259.)
2.2 Marketing strategy for tourism Marketing planning process for services
Trang 13The Marketing Planning Process fc a Goal 1 Mission | Setting 2 Corperate Objectives | = _- T +| 3 Marketing Audit F " nee e tenet eens : N Analysing the i current #4 SWOT Analysis | situation ; | § Marketing Assumptians NS ! 2 = A
i | 6 Markating Objactives & Strategies | >
Creating the " Ff Forecasts of Expected Results | marketing strateqy 8 Create Alternative Plans X | / i” - N + 9 Marketing Budget | Allocating marketing : resources and monitoring — 19% Derailed Action Plan fn N r
Figure 1: Malcolm McDonald’s marketing planning process Source: McDonald & Payne, 2006, p.37
Trang 14Goal setting Business Mission N Situation Analysis (SWOT analysis) ` Marketing Objectives ` Strategies Formulation ` Marketing Mix for services business Business mission
It is necessary for all companies to set up a clear mission statement which should be briefly, highly personal and meaningful A mission can give the various stakeholders in the service organization a clear purpose and sense of direction The tourism company must define its scopes more specifically: its products, competence, market segments, target positioning, differentiations
Situation analysis (SWOT analysis)
The main purpose of internal and external factors (SWOT: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threat) analysis 1s to identify the key components of marketing information and strategies that fit the company’s resources and capacity
Trang 15(Philip Kotler, John Bowen and James Makens, 1996, Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism, Prentice Hall International, page 8.) The company’s success depends on its business strengths All of these SWOT factors must be taken into account when planning promotion or marketing programs for the tourist company When building up promotional plans in particular, strengths should be emphasized, opportunities taken advantage of, threats minimized and weaknesses
minimized or overcome Marketing Objectives:
Tourism marketing management is the setting of marketing goals (considering the resources of the tourism company and the market opportunities) and the planning and execution of marketing activities required to meet the goals A marketing objective is a precise statement which outlines what to be accomplished by the service company’s marketing activities The purpose of setting marketing objectives is to target the profit, revenue and market share the company wishes to achieve to satisfy the mission
Strategies formulation
Objectives indicate what the company to achieve; strategy answers how to get them Marketing strategies should state how the marketing objectives can be achieved Although there are many types of strategies, Michael Porter has condensed them into three typical types: overall cost leadership (working hard to achieve the lowest costs), differentiation (concentrating on achieving superior performance), and focus (focusing on one or more narrow market segments, rather than going after a large market)
Marketing Mix for services
Trang 16CHAPTER 3: ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT BUSINESS PERFORMANCE OF BEN THANH TOURIST COMPANY
3.1 Overview of Vietnam’s Tourism Market
3.1.1 Factors influence the attraction of tourists
Vietnam is still very much an unknown destination for many tourists, a land of rich culture and myths For many years there has not been professional marketing communication campaign for tourism, Vietnamese government has recently done some such activities in major markets, where there have always been many tourists having visited Vietnam for years
Vietnam Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has jointly run several marketing promotional
campaigns in France, Japan, China, and Korea The factors that make tourists choose to visit Vietnam in recent years have been professionally communicated throughout such events
The safest destination in the region
Vietnam, where celebrities come to escape!
Having looked at the period of recent 10 years, Vietnam has enjoyed the stable political situation compared to other nations in the region, which have often experienced bomb blast or violent disturbances Peace in Vietnam life style has therefore become a selling point for
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Political safety has always been put into consideration for every long-term business investment, which subsequently increased the number of guests coming to Vietnam for business purpose, and then later returning for personal leisure
Charming Vietnamese custom
Being Asian, the Vietnamese people are popular for their genuinely friendly personality They are much appreciated by foreigners for being humble and kind Tourists are often received friendly smiles and help by the people they meet on the road
“Ao Dai” — the Vietnamese national custom — is famous as being one of the very few national customs, which beautiful, sexy and practical “Ao Dai” is highshool girl uniform and being commonly worn by women today and special occasions
In recent years, whenever there are international events being held in Vietnam, guests are offered Ao Dai to ware and gist to bring home The image of Ao Dai 1s therefore becoming more popular as being worn by diplomat and famous people
Vietnamese food
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It is now easy to find a cooking class to learn how to cook a local dish, or going to market with local chef to experience how a dish being prepared from a market to a dining table Many options of cooking class for tourists organised by hotels and tour operators and culinary schools are commonly available
Natural beauty
Tourists can better shop in their own countries or can even do shopping in bustling Hong Kong, Singapore or Bangkok Vietnam is simply different Vietnam has been fortunate to own such diversified natural beauty, it has a lot to offer to tourist If Vietnamese tourism organisation know how retain its guests, for sure they have to come back, as it will never be enough time to experience all faces of Vietnam beauty From the unique Ha Long bay to Nha Trang — the world top 100 beautiful bays, or the world heritage treasure of Hue, Hoi An, My
Son, or white sand beach of Da Nang and Phu Quoc, or the mountain freshness of Dalat or
fascinating floating markets in Mekong delta, or southern metropolis Ho Chi Minh city and the must-not-be-missed Hanoi old quarter
Rich culture
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cultural space being recognised by UNESCO as world heritage: Hue old capital, Hoi An ancient town, cultural space of gongs, travel music of “Ca Tru” and Quan Ho
3.1.2 Analysis of outcomes of Vietnam’s tourism in attracting international guests in recent
years
Despite the number of tourist arrival has been increased over the past 10 years (yearly average growth rate is over 9%); tourism income has contributed 4.15% to GDP of Vietnam (as of June 2009) Whereas, according to VNAT, in order to be regarded as major contribution sector, tourism has to contribute above 6% of GDP In short tourism has not grown as much as expectation and its potential 1999 | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2005 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 Guests arrival 1781, | 2140, | 2330, | 2628, | 2429, 2030 3467, | 3583, | 4171, | 4253, (thousand) 8 1 8 2 6 7 4 5 7 14,7 % 11,4 % 8,17 17% 184 3% 16% 6% Growth rate (%) 16,8% | 8,2% % 0 %
Table 1: Numbers of international tourist to Vietnam in the past 10 years Source: Vietnam National Administration of Tourism
Tourists from China, Korea, United States, Japan, Taiwan and France have always accounted
to the big piece of the pie The rest are tourist from Australia, Thailand, Malaysia and
Singapore
Vietnamese tourism is not yet a strong compared to other countries in South East Asia region If having close look at the number of international tourist arriving in Malaysia, it is 5 times higher than Vietnam, and Thailand is four time higher
Following are unprejudiced factors happened:
e The SARS outbreak back in 2003 has brought the growth rate down to -8.15
e The economy down tum happened in late 2008 and 2009 WTO expects tourism to recover only by 2011
However, achievements are:
Trang 2013
e Income from tourism growth in line with plan: US$ 2,3 billions and over US$ 4 billions, with average growth rate is 15,6%
3.2 Introduction of Ben Thanh Cooperation and Ben Thanh Tourist Company 3.2.1 Introduction of Ben Thanh Cooperation and Ben Thanh Tourist Company
Ben Thanh Tourist Company is a unit attached to Ben Thanh Cooperation (Sunimex) with
abbreviation name Ben Thanh Tourist From the establishment in 1989 until now, Ben Thanh
Tourist operates in traveling, restaurants, and hotels, services and trading, import and export and development investment services Ben Thanh continuously and step by step establishes and develops services to satisfy the diversified demand of customers and partners in the industry Ben Thanh Tourist has a closed network and diversified products, large scale with the cooperation and capital contribution for investment to form many products and services
such as domestic and international tour, conference arrangement, event tour, tour
transportation, hotels and restaurants — dancing, karaoke, import and export, distribution agents and tourist agencies, money transfer, foreign exchange, precious metal and stone import and export and development investment services
Ben Thanh Tourist always confirms the consistency in its business, especially in traveling
Moreover, Ben Thanh Tourist built an international standard network and work force The
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of Vietnam Tourism Recently, Ben Thanh Tourist has been awarded as Top Trading Service
and The Guide Award in 2008, 2009
3.2.2 Analysis the current business performance of Ben Thanh Tourist Company
Due to economic downturn and the swine flu, Ben Thanh Tourist has seen number of guests dropped by 10% - 20%, though discount programmes have been implemented
In respond to the economic down turn year, Ben Thanh Tourist has be inplementing following these activities this year:
e Continue to work on traditional markets such as Germany, France, Holland
e Strengthen the service quality
e Start selling tour on internet and to improve brand awareness
For overseas market, previously it focuses on Holland, France, the USA, Germany, UK,
the Philippine, Indonesia, Malaysia To expand the market, from the beginning of 2006, Ben Thanh Tourist explored to Russian market rather successfully, signed the agreement with TopTour to be the representative for Ben Thanh Tourist in Russia and this company has the plan to exploit this potential market effectively For overseas travel market, Ben Thanh Tourist was the first company to organize tours to Japan “Watching Sakura Flowers” and tours around Europe together with watching World Cup in Germany and had got the good feedback from customers Now tours on Japan for tourists and Vietnamese companies to survey the market as well as sight seeing tours to Europe are organized regularly Domestic travel is also our
attention, besides the traditional tours, there are many new tours such as: Adventure Tours at Buu Long Mountain and culture exploration tours, resting tours, exploration tours, sea tours,
food tours, rewarding tours (MICE tours) to attract and satisfy the need of guests
In 2006, the revenue of traveling service was 185 billion dong, increased by 7% as compared to the last year The Company served 704,735 customers, traveling section received and arranged tours for 116,746 customers, increased by 20% as compared to 2005 in which foreign customers were 61,570, increased by 13% as compared with the same period
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with the motto “Fineness in service” that Ben Thanh Tourist aims at to affirm the professionalism, band name, and customer confidence in local and international market
In 2008, the Company obtained revenue of VND363 billion, an increase of 2% year- on-year Profits were VND 18.6 billion, increasing 52% compared to 2007 Its travel services
attracted 129,028 tourists among whom were 58,354 international tourists on inbound tours, 6,389 Vietnamese tourists on outbound tours and 64,674 tourists taking domestic tours, an increase of 38% year-on-year Goals Year Year Year Year Year Unit 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 - Revenue Million 324 325 bi 313 bi 352 bi 363 bi VND billions
- Gross profit 7 45 bi 5,8 bi 14bi 12,24 bi | 18,8 bi
- Amount to submit 7 16bi 17bi 17bi 15,81 bi 19,5 bi the budget - Total amount of Tum 647.728 | 739.934 | 704.735 | 810.992 | 815.000 tourists Of: - Travel tourist 7 80.191 97.087 116.746 | 118.013 | 129.000 Inbound tourist 7 38.191 54.629 61.570 64.961 58.354 Outbound tourist 7 4.749 6.982 5.876 6.392 6.389 Domestic tourist 7 37.402 35.476 49.300 46.660 64.674
Table 2: The results of the company business in 5 years (2004 — 2008) Source: Yearly reports of Ben Thanh Tourist Company
3.2.3 Marketing activities of Ben Thanh Tourist Company
Marketing activities that have been done by Ben Thanh Tourist are common in recent years: Pricing strategies: In respond to the economic downtum, Ben Thanh has launched several low
cost tour packages to Hong Kong, Bali Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia for domestic tourists The discount programs have attracted Vietnamese tourists to choose to go overseas with good quality operator like Ben Thanh but with lower price than usual Ben Thanh also introduces different discount programs for big tour group, returning guests, and regular guests (based on discount offered by airlines and hotels)
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Thanh tourist, all guests using Ben Thanh service this year can have a chance to joint lucky draw program Clients can have an opportunity to win car, laptop or camera etc
Advertisement: In order to communicate of promotion, discounts and lucky draw, Ben Thanh
has chosen several mixes of communication channels, such as:
+ Advertisement of local high-catch newspaper or magazines
+ Advertisement of local TV channels; there are TV channels specializing on entertainment and shopping The news can be included in topics for tourism, hot deals, or question and answet
+ Advertorial articles on online newspaper, under topics like: shopping, promotion, tourism + Banners on websites for shoppers or websites specializing in tourism
Sponsorship: Ben Thanh tourist is also active in participating and sponsoring events related to tourism field, such as: Tour guide competitions organized by Ho Chi Minh city Department of Tourism, “Sales month” organized by Ho Chi Minh city Department of Commerce By participating and sponsoring this kind of event, the name of Ben Thanh is well aware of through publicity, participants and guest
Road show: Ben Thanh participates in several tourism road show every year within Vietnam or overseas, organized by Ho Chi Minh city‘s Department of Tourism For road show in
Vietnam, it is more to raise awareness within domestic market For road show overseas, Ben
Thanh can meet with organizations from different countries to open up international partnership opportunities
Promoting company’s achievements on local newspaper: Regular communication of Ben Thanh Tourist’s achievement through advertorial articles on local high-catch magazine or newspapers This activity is to raise awareness about the service quality of Ben Thanh and company profile
3.3 Results gained from the survey and data analyses
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now is consistent with the ultimate aim of attracting more international guests Based on the results gained from the survey and with the theoretical framework presented in Chapter I, the author will introduce a marketing strategy in attracting more international guests at Ben Thanh tourist in the next chapter
For the nationality of guests, 12 questionnaires were sent out to each segment from some Europe countries, China, Korea and US separately We only do the survey on 100
guests
For the length of stay, the survey indicates that 51% of total surveyed guests have a week, 23% have four nights and the remaining is one night and more than four nights It means that most of guests from main European markets have long stay
Having asked what the primary purpose of their visits, they answered that mostly it was of pleasure (relaxing) This is matched with the aim of Ben Thanh Tourist Frequency Percent Cumulative Percent Pleasure 65 65 65 Business 20 20 85 Meeting 10 10 95 Banqueting 5 5 100 Total 100 100
Table 3: What is your primary purpose of your visit? Source: Result from the survey
Not many guests (12%) come to Vietnam for business and 10% for meeting and convention This statistics will help the Company a lot in deciding what investment should be needed more in order to bring the relaxing and unforgotten atmosphere to the guests This is also supported with information gained from the survey that most of guests come to Vietnam with their relatives and friends Only 9 asked guests come alone
Frequency | Percent Cumulative Percent
Valid | With friends 20 20 20
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18 With my family | 65 65 85 Alone 14 14 99 Others 1 1 100 Total 100 100 Table 4: Whom do you spend your holiday with?
Source: Results from the survey
For which way they know Ben Thanh Tourist Company, 49.03% of total surveyed guests said that they know the Company via representative offices and 23.23% said that they are aware of the Company through advertising in newspapers and magazines Frequency Percent Cumulative Percent Valid Via representative | 40 40 40 offices Advertising in | 25 25 65 newspapers/magazines By walk-in 10 10 75 Advertising billboard 4 4 79 Via friends and | 2l 21 100 relatives Total 100 100.0 Table 5: How do you know Ben Thanh Tourist Company?
Source: Results from the survey
It can be concluded from the survey that because the purpose of their visits is of pleasure (enjoying and relaxing), they would like to be free from something such as choosing the resorts, booking transportations, making reservations, ect The way of using a travel agent is mostly preferred
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should be in one year in advance, before the time to be considered which country should be chosen They would like their holidays to be well planned and not to welcome any unpleasant things which may happen during their holidays 27% of the guests said that they often make
reservation from 1 to 3 months in advance Frequency Percent Cumulative percent Valid 1-3 months 27 27 27 3-6 months 60 60 87 More than 6 months | 10 10 97 No reservation 3 3 100 Total 100 100
Table 6: Did you make your reservation in advance? Source: Result from the survey
For rating the reservation service of the Company, over 60% of the surveyed guests confirmed that they are pleased with this service The reservation is computerized and the profile of each group is properly filed and monitored The reservation 1s always in good order when the guests arrive and this facilitates the process of checking-in, reducing the guest’ waiting time They also highly evaluated the assistance of luggage porter service with 87.10% of the surveyed guests rating it as “good” Reservation service Excellent Good Fair Poor Total Check-in efficiency 20 65 12 3 100 Percentage | 20% 65% 12% 3% After booking service 45 37 13 5 100 Percentage | 45% 37% 13% 5% Reservation in order when | 33 60 6 1 100 you arrive Percentage 33% 60% 6% 1%
Table 7: Ben Thanh Tourist’s Reservation Service
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From the survey for having asked if they would choose Ben Thanh Tourist for their further visits to Vietnam, 65 guests (accounting for 65%) answered “yes” However, the portion of “no” answer is 25% The rest is “not sure” This has set a challenge for management of Ben Thanh Tourist to find ways to increase the rate of return HYes No ONot sure
Figure 2: Rate of return Source: Results from the survey
When asked if the service valued for their money, 83 guests (accounting 83% answer yes The portion of “no” answer is rather high It is not good for Ben Thanh Tourist
For overall rating for Ben Thanh Tourist, 35% of surveyed guest rate as “excellent” This portion should be increased in the future 40% guests rate as “good” The rest rates fair
Luckily, no guest rates “poor”
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CHAPTER 4: MARKETING STRATEGIES OF BEN THANH TOURIST COMPANY
4.1 Company strategy setting 4.1.1 Vision
Ben Thanh Tourist aims at becoming the leading international tourist company in Vietnam and in South East Asia The Company has maintained and developed leading position in Vietnam tourism Ben Thanh Tourist commits to bring the best value to clients and ensure unshakable and harmonious development between private benefit of employees and social benefit
4.1.2 Mission
To achieve vision, Ben Thanh Tourist always understands that their customers, their staffs,
and community are essence of their business Their business not only makes private benefit for the company but also brings healthy life, human culture community to everyone
For business development objectives, all action plans of the company aims to health business development objectives
For customer orientation, they focus on thoughtful caring to customers, meet diversified demands of customers with the best services The staffs always create extra efforts to satisfy guest needs They want to make sure that all guest experiences will be friendly, courteous and easy
For community orientation, all tourism products and company activities must be performed based on social benefit This means that their products and activities must be friendly with environment, corresponding with country culture and making positive relationship with community
For employee orientation, they issue policy to bring economic effectiveness to improve employee earning They also take all physical and spitted advantages to promote their staff for productivities
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Since the positioning of the Company is the leading tourist company and directly competing the competitors in this field The objectives for the Company as follows:
Welcome more international guests especially guests from Europe, US and some key Asia countries and increase the revenue
To be regarded as a different tourist company by the variety of services and products Focus on quality standards
Form E-business to sell the tours 4.2 Marketing segmenting, positioning
Customers are so numerous, widely scattered and varied in their needs With limited resources, Ben Thanh Tourist Company could not meet all demands from all customers with the same effectiveness Today, instead of pursuing mass marketing and product-variety marketing, many companies focus on target market Target marketing helps them to identify market opportunities and allows them to develop right products for right target markets The
three steps of target market are market segmentation, market targeting and market
positioning
According to World Trade Organization (www.world-tourism.org), those countries have the highest tourism expenditure per capital in recent years
Rank International Tourism Change (%) Expenditure
Trang 3023 9 Canada 11.7 13.4 | 16.0 14.9 19.3 493 10 Russia 11.3 12.9 | 15.7 14.1 22.1 109 Table 8: World’s Top Tourism Spenders Source: www world-tourism.org
In addition to that, the economics of those markets have been developing steadily and more people prefer to spend holidays in Vietnam as Vietnam is very safe country After tsunami and many political issues in Thailand, Indonesia or natural calamity in Philippine, many foreign
tourists have selected Vietnam as the first destination in their Asian travel tour
The company has to select the most attractive segments to serve as targets for marketing strategies to achieve the desired objectives The selected segments in this Thesis are guests from Europe, US and some Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, China The guests from European or US prefer to travel to places where they can come back to the nature and where have many interesting and ancient things to understand and explore With the market segmentation of international guests from Europe, US and some key Asian countries, Ben Thanh Tourist must think over the quality standard and quality improvement and always maintain the high quality of services With the strategy of concentrated marketing, Ben Thanh Tourist will have a strong marketing position in the segments it serves thanks to greater knowledge of these segments’ needs Many investments should be focused on how to improve the quality standards which are expected from those guests and how to serve them right By applying this strategy, the Company will concentrate on distribution and promotion Once the target market are set, Ben Thanh Tourist then must decide what marketing positioning should be followed by identifying what competitive advantages are over competitors The positioning job often starts with selecting the right competitive advantages and effectively communicating and delivering the chosen position to targeted market
4.3 SWOT analysis
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Tourist must do best to satisfy its guests in target market segments in order to compete against competitors A SWOT analysis will look at the company’s strength (to build on), weaknesses (to cover), opportunities (to capture) and threats (to defend against) Those elements have a certain impact on the formulation and implementation of the company’s marketing strategy
4.3.1 Internal factors analysis (Strengths and Weaknesses analysis)
+ Strengths —S
Ben Thanh Tourist head office is located in the main street of Ho Chi Minh City, which enables foreign tourists coming for information The location also helps the Company to deal with the target market easily
The company has been founded for 20 years with good reputation under the financial support of Vietnam Government Ben Thanh Tourist develops continuously and step by step establishes services to satisfy the diversity demands of customers and partners Ben Thanh Tourist has a closed network and diversified products, large scale with the cooperation and capital contribution for investment to form many products and
services such as domestic and international tour, conference arrangement, event tour,
tour transportation, hotels and restaurants — dancing, karaoke, import and export, distribution agents and tourist agencies, money transfer, foreign exchange, precious metal and stone import and export and development investment service
Ben Thanh Tourist built an international standard network and work force, especially in travelling The Company set up the relationship with 40 travelling agencies of 25 countries These networks work as a liaison between Ben Thanh Tourist and the
agencies in overseas Ben Thanh Tourist is the member of Association ASTA, PATA,
JATA
Experienced and skillful staff team is provided with many training and always receives further training during employment service A group of professional training team hiring from outside comes to Ben Thanh Tourist to deliver training to all staffs, especially, staffs who often have direct contacts with the guest
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Ben Thanh Tourist used to be under the State’s control and management so it has not had any official marketing strategy so far, and lack of understanding of competitive situation All marketing activities of company are separated and not oriented Managing Director decided all marketing activities when needed
The total salary package is not competitive with other tourist companies This is one of the reasons why many qualified staffs left the company and started working for competitors
In the aspect of staff also, even sales staffs of the company has some special knowledge and experience about serving international guests, but they still lack of the knowledge of culture, tradition, customs from the countries guests coming from
It still serves the complicated formalities to confirm the reservation It causes difficulties for international guests to book the tour online It results not to customize to individual demand
The Company has not created community on the website to take advantages of tourists It has not developed e-Business applied to the business activities
4.3.2 External factors analysis (Opportunities and Threats analysis)
* Opportunities — O
Globalization trends help to increase opportunities to introduce Vietnam to worldwide and also take Vietnamese traveling around the world
Tourism in Vietnam has received supports from government that brings convenience for foreign tourist to take visa for Vietnam entering Policy of visa licensing has been flexible has brought conveniences for foreign tourist visiting Vietnam
Development of internet technology brings opportunities for online business development to reduce cost and increase attractiveness to customers
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for tourists Vietnam is a country with mix cultures consisting of oriental and western
influence from French Besides, Vietnam stretch out from north to south with 54 ethnic
groups in the whole country and various religion such as Buddhism, Confucianism, Christianity, Cao Dai, Tam Giao This brings many opportunities for tourism development
By attending “voting for wonder of the world” event for Ha Long Bay and Phong Nha- Ke Bang, Vietnam has increased attractiveness and chances to introduce Vietnam to
worldwide tourists In addition, recently, Vietnam has been the host for many cultural
international events to attract a lot of foreign tourists and press
The major share of the inbound tourists to Vietnam comes from China, South Korea, US, Japan
Threats — T
According to Vietnam tourism department, there are 2895 travel agencies and tourist companies in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam They are big competitors of Ben Thanh Tourist Especially, many of them are now moving to online booking and customer can pay by credit card FIDI Tours Company 1s a typical example
SARS and HINI1 flu (swine flu) which have been stretching throughout all provinces in Vietnam are always a headache to tourism industry These diseases have created threats to foreign tourists and it seems that they are reluctant to consider Vietnam as their destination for holidays Safety is one of criteria of international guests in choosing places for relaxing and leisure HIN1 flu has had a serious impact on tourism in Vietnam recently It causes a lot of disadvantages for tourist companies to attract international tourists
It is easy to see that economic crisis now affects seriously to tourism development in Vietnam Tourists from the developed countries where have suffered heavy economic crisis cut their budget and expenses for traveling to overseas
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tourists At present, Vietnam has many attractive places of interest but they remained “hidden charms”
Uncompleted traffic projects and long time construction cause less attractive to tourists The traffic in Vietnam is always an obsession to foreign guests It always gives the bad impression to them upon arrival
4.4 Formulating marketing objectives
After SWOT analysis, marketing objectives should be determined to see what the Company wants to be and to help us provide yardstick by which we can measure the performance
Selling exciting services and developing new services to existing segments together with exploring the market guests from Europe, US and some key Asian countries can increase the number of guests to Ben Thanh Tourist This will contribute to the increase in total revenue of the Company
With more investment in the future to improve services, products, facilities and staff's skills in order to meet the increasing demand on quality from international guests, the Company will maintain the leading position in tourism business in Vietnam
Launching [E-business through the main website of the Company www.benthanhtourist.com for selling tours and doing promotional activities to
minimize the cost and improve the company image to international market
Strengthening the image of Ben Thanh Tourist in the perception of international guests will lead the Company be chosen as one of the leading tour operator in Asia
Launching new package tours that are suitable for the economic conditions today 4.5 Marketing Mix Strategies
Product
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reception’s ready services would guarantee guests of a comfortable holiday in less worry - Geographic and historical reasons may play a role in choosing a holiday location Guests from US, Europe like to travel to beaches to rural areas They look for a complete package
with keywords such as variety, experience, culture, nature and adventure Ben Thanh Tourist
should organize tours to explore nature in rural areas
- Besides normal sightseeing tours, Ben Thanh should launch cultural tours, spring tours with the highlight Tet festival (Lunar New Year), days of Vietnamese cultures to focus on cultural heritage segment Ben Thanh Tourist should also launch adventurous tours, golf tours, sea
tours
- The Company should create package tours for businessmen, especially tours for meetings, convention and incentive travel Participation in these activities and visiting national or international exhibitions make some opportunities for those participators to visit the city and its tourist attraction places
- They also should create more products as: sustainable tourism, ecotourism as they are entirely new products, services
Price
When establishing prices, Ben Thanh Tourist should give attention to pricing strategies which may encourage off-season and non-peak period sales, longer stays, group business and the sales of package plans (combination of room, meals and recreational facilities) The objective in pricing strategy is product quality leadership This pricing strategy is suitable for a leading tourist company which is trying to attract more guests from Europe, US and some key Asian countries
- Prestige pricing should be applied to position Ben Thanh Tourist Company as a leading one Guests from US, Europe always think that their money paid for the used services is valued and in return, they want to receive the best service quality
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- In order to encourage representative offices in key markets to bring more guests, Ben Thanh Tourist should offer preferential tour rates The offer tour rates should be 20% lower than public rates In addition, volume discounts should also applied to groups over 10 peoples In low seasons, the tour rates should be adjusted to be lower than normal rates
Places (Distribution)
Place really means distribution The two main methods of distribution below have their own disadvantage and benefit so the company has to combine them into one process that make customers feel comfortable in choosing it
- Direct selling: Choose one of current websites to focus as a main website of Ben Thanh Tourist (recommended www.benthanhtourist.com), other websites should be linked to the main website Besides, Ben Thanh Tourist should launch new website to provide Vietnam tourism information as Vietnam tourism encyclopedia to support for Benthanhtourist.com It will help international guests to find out what they need easily The company should move to online business, increasing e-transaction, reducing complicated formalities to customers, increasing customization to individual and take advantage of opportunities for social network For near future planning, Ben Thanh should launch new services, sell tour online This is approach individual guest, this is a powerful tool for brand awareness, taking control of price, and this tool can help Ben Thanh to stay closer to clients This tool is going to be available in the first quarter of 2011 However, in order to let customers know the Website we have to use other methods such as sending catalog, introduction mail, advertising etc
- Representative offices: Representative offices plan as a liaison with potential guests Their main role is to provide necessary information about Ben Thanh Tourist It is more effective to have a representative in targeted markets than to send a sales manager there
Promotion
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and marketing objectives As we know that marketing promotional mix includes advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and publicity or public relation
- Personal selling: is the most expensive element of promotional mix However, this is very effective promotional method, which we decide to use to compete with other competitors Success or failure with the tourism business mostly depends on the ability to sell Therefore, Ben Thanh Tourist trains its contact personnel and employees to ensure better interactions and communications to work with international guests
- Sales promotion activities cost money Ben Thanh Tourist uses different kinds sales promotion techniques to persuade international guests to choose it as a provider The techniques used by Ben Thanh Tourist include quantity discount, children discount, off-season price rebate and improve service packages for it package tours, accommodations In low
season, in order to attract international guests, Ben Thanh Tourist should offer 15 or 30
percent discount for accommodation or offer a kind of homestay accommodation the young tourists to learn about Vietnamese culture and traditions during Tet holiday It also offers extra services, improved services and improved food at the existing price such as adding extra service for honey moon tour
- Public relation: The main role of this activity is to create and maintain the positive image of the Company
+ Ben Thanh Tourist should recruit one PR director who 1s able to co-ordinate with overseas advertising agents and can deal with journalists of specialized magazines of tourism such as Travel and Leisure magazine
+ In low season, representatives of those magazines should be also invited press trips All expenses relating to these trips are free of charge The journalists will help to introduce the image of Ben Thanh Tourist
+ Major publication tools in marketing PR should be the Company’s brochures,
audiovisual materials such as CD-Roms, DVDs, newsletters, leaflets of some special
packages
+ Sponsorship: Ben Thanh tourist is also active in participating and sponsoring events
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+ Road show: Ben Thanh participates in several tourism road show every year within Vietnam or overseas, organized by Ho Chi Minh city‘s Department of Tourism For road show overseas, Ben Thanh can meet with organizations from different countries to open up international partnership opportunities
- Advertising: Advertising should be conducted with the reference of the target markets, market positioning and marketing mix
+ In advertising campaign, a message about the Company should be released the benefits of the services Ben Thanh Tourist should have a contract with a famous advertising agent in Europe, US and Asia in order to arrange some advertising jobs
+ Ben Thanh Tourist will advertise in the Internet, primarily on its own website and on google.com and yahoo.com
People
People element is consider as one of the most important elements of marketing mix services The staff is playing an importance role as the service provider, the Company gives the priority to the staff attitude and performance as one of the most important factor They need to maintain their staff service quality All the staff should attend the training at least four times a year The most influence of the people element is the willingness and intention of the staff The Company emphasizes to staff attitude is friendly, caring
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CONCLUSION
With the aim to set up the Marketing Strategy for Ben Thanh Tourist to attract more international guests, the project including three chapters in the suitable order had submitted the Marketing Mix Strategy and its implementing to make the project successful The Marketing Strategy of this project is set for 3-year period from 2010 to 2012 and is submitted to the management company for review Then it will be consolidated with marketing strategies of other businesses in order to generate a Group Marketing Strategy Based on the marketing strategy which is approved by the management board, the company then develops the marketing plan for each year
This project has systemized the theoretical frameworks that support to launching new “Marketing Strategy” when company is facing the difficulty situation The launching this new strategy is the necessary step that company should pay more attention on therefore building the detailed marketing plan is very important
In order to set the marketing objective and creating the marketing strategies, the identification of the market customer segmentation should be considered to scope broad target customer After complete market segmentation to identified target customer, we set up the marketing objectives toward to target group The analysis of company position in market will give us the real situation that company is facing We will know what the customers need and how strong the competitors are Based on those, we can have the appropriate policy to compete effectively on the market This analysis is mainly stated in SWOT matrix
Based on the mission and objectives of the company, the Thesis has proposed the details marketing mix strategies with implementing Through the analysis of marketing mix, we examined Ben Thanh Tourist’s marketing actions in term of product, price, place and promotion
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continuous training program to all staffs, especially to those who have direct contacts with the guests This is aimed to maintain the service quality standard as the best one