Bachelor of Art in Business Administration

THE STUDY OF MARKETING STRATEGIES

FOR VIETNAM TOURISM BOARD TO
INCREASE VISITORS

Done by: Vuong Hoai Nam

Supervisor: Ms Sally Lo

Submission date:

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STATEMENT OF ORIGNINALITY
I, undersigned, declare that this dissertation is my own original work, and I give
permission that it may be photocopied and made available for inter-library loan.”

Signed by

Vuong Hoai Nam

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
With all kind support and advices during my project, I would like to express my deep
gratitude to all people.

First of all, I would like to thank especially to my project supervisor, Ms Sally Lo with
all her assistance and constructive criticism of early drafts until I finish the whole
project successfully and on time. I have benefited greatly from the many effective
discussions and valuable feedback.

Furthermore, I would also like to express my deepest gratitude to my parents for

encouragement and financial support all the time I study in Singapore. They often
give me close contact and talk to me every week and never let me alone when I
first time travel to foreign country. I could pay totally attention on my education
with least worries.

Last, a big thank-you to Thames Business School and University of Portsmouth

which have provided very good condition of material and guideline to develop
important skills for the future career

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ABSTRACT
Globalization brings many opportunities to countries, especially developing countries. It helps
those countries to expand their market and increase their export, to strengthen attraction of
foreign investment, to enhance the effectiveness and competition of economics and so on.
Moreover, it is the best way for them to approach to latest technologies and knowledge that is the
key factors to industrialize and modernize their countries and to keep pace with development of
new age. However, globalization seem bring more challenges than opportunities. It put many
countries into the challenges such as perfection and innovation of institution of governmental
administration, and challenges of human resource and so on. Besides, the biggest challenge is the
violent oversea competitions that come from activities of expanding the market. Satisfying
customer’s demand is an important way to survive and durable develop. Customer becomes the
core that every business activities need to aim to and satisfy them in the best way.

Marketing strategies plays an important role in global economy. It directs, controls, and
combines business activities. With Marketing, business’s decisions have stable bases
scientifically. It also supplies enough necessary information for factories to satisfy customers’
demands. Marketing has a huge impact. It determines revenue, cost, profit and thus effectiveness
of production and business activities. Besides, Marketing is an important tool that helps
enterprises to position their brand and charisma on the market. Marketing helps businesses to
collect necessary data and information for researching and analyzing customers’ demands.
Moreover, Marketing helps businesses to recognize the implicit demands. It has a function of
analyzing the capacity of products and services as well as prices, consumption, result of
promotion policies. When life’s standard becomes higher and more diversified, marketing
activities must connect closely innovation of creating new products and services to satisfy
increasing customers’ demands. Marketing is a vital tool that helps businesses to approach to
customers and satisfy them so that they can get high revenue, profit and long-term development
Finally, Marketing combines different departments to achieve business’s common goals and aim
to satisfy customers’ diversified demands.

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CONTENTS LIST
statement of origninality............................................................................................II
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT.................................................................................................III
ABSTRACT................................................................................................................. IV
Contents List...............................................................................................................1
chapter 1: Introduction ..............................................................................................2
chapter 2: The literature review ................................................................................4
The essentiality of Marketing in Vietnam TOurism................................................4
Marketing .............................................................................................................6
Vietnam really needs very Good Marketing .........................................................6
Important Role of Marketing In Vietnam TOurism................................................7
Marketing Strategy in Vietnam Tourism...............................................................8
Marketing process ...............................................................................................9
Vietnam Government Policies of Tourism Development ......................................10
CHAPTER 3: The methodology of this dissertation....................................................11
The objectives of dissertation ..............................................................................11
Scope of researching ...........................................................................................11
The methodology of dissertation..........................................................................12
International Marketing, Differentiation between services and tangible products 13
Methods of analyzing and accessing annual financial report................................13
Historical materialism............................................................................................13
Questionnaire methodology .................................................................................13
cHAPTER 4: Data collection and analyzing process..................................................15
sUMMARY OF SURVEY RESULT...............................................................................15
Finding and analysis..............................................................................................17
Market segmentation ...........................................................................................17
Market Positioning ................................................................................................20
MARKETING STRATEGY..........................................................................................25
Price ..................................................................................................................25
Product............................................................................................................... 27
Place (Distribution).............................................................................................30
Promotion ..........................................................................................................30
The secondary data analysis of Vietnam Tourism ...............................................32

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 The Vietnam Tourism‘s advantages and disadvantages .....................................34
cHAPTER 5: Conclusion.............................................................................................36
APPENDIX ................................................................................................................ 37
The tourist agencies’ collected data in 2009.........................................................37
References ...............................................................................................................41

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
Vietnam is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the Asia-Pacific region and its tourism
industry has been growing unprecedentedly over the past few years. In 2009, despite the global
recession, the travel and tourism industry is estimated to have contributed 13.1% of the GDP to
the Vietnamese economy. Being a source as well as destination market, the Vietnamese tourism
industry has grown nearly twice as fast as GDP in recent years. The government’s support has
been the key driving force for this industry. The government has been spending readily on the
promotional activities all around the world to boost the nation’s tourism industry. The domestic
tourism grew at a high rate during 2008-2009. Even though it is not a key industry but it has a lot
of potentiality in present. Vietnam has a lot of advantages for development of tourism. They
have many famous landscapes, beautiful sites, tourist attractions, and historical monuments such
as Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park, Hoi An Ancient Town, My Son Sanctuary, especially Ha
Long Bay that has just acknowledged as a wonder of nature by United Nations Educational,
Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO, 2010, World Heritage). They also have a long-
standing culture with more than 4,000-year history and many wars for independence that
attracted millions of tourists coming to Vietnam annually. Moreover, Vietnam is developing
country nowadays; they have a convenient traffic and a lot of hotels with the international
standard. Finally, Vietnam has a stable politics that is a vital factor of tourism; none of visitor
wants to come to insecure country to travel. Definitely, Vietnam Tourism has sufficient
resources for potential development in coming future.

Vietnam has the same conditions and advantages of tourism like the others in area including
topical weather, long and beautiful beaches and so on. However, the number of oversea visitors
coming to Vietnam for travelling is still lower than other countries. Many Vietnamese
economists believed that contributions of Tourism to Vietnamese economy were not worthy of
its potentials. Finding appropriate strategies for development of Tourism is a hot topic that is

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discussed on media and economic conferences by economist and policy makers. One of the most
important strategies is marketing that seems a vital factor of Tourism Industry Development.
This strategy need to be set up basing on careful researches.

Based on research and analyzing the Vietnamese Tourism Industry including comparative
advantages in the deeper and wider globalization, comparing with the competitive countries in
the same area such as Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, China and Singapore, combining with the
basis theories of marketing finally, this research aims to find a suitable marketing strategies for is
development. This research has basically enough important components to provide the readers
with sufficient information and analyses to have a general overview. The structure of the report
is as follows:

Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 2: The Literature Review

Chapter 3: The Methodology of This Dissertation

Chapter 4: Data Collection and Analyzing Process

Chapter 5: Conclusion

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CHAPTER 2: THE LITERATURE REVIEW

THE ESSENTIALITY OF MARKETING IN VIETNAM TOURISM

The World is in the stage that globalization is taking place on all sectors of life including culture,
economy, and society. The world is becoming united and smaller. This is an opportunity for
many developing countries to join the global economics. However, globalization does not mean
elimination of competition; it is increasing global competition on the world. The global
completion has both of positive and negative aspects. With consumers, it is helping them to
enjoy the diversification of products with higher qualities and cheaper prices as well as the better
services. With companies, they have opportunities of approaching to latest technologies that can
help them to reduce cost and raise their product quality and thus their profitability. Nevertheless,
the global competition has its negative aspect; it is making many companies to confront violent
competitions. They also faced to many other challenges such as the inadequate management
skill, ineffective resources controlling, and operating.

Nowadays, Vietnam becomes a remarkably developing country in Asian area. Vietnamese

economics is very aggressive and potential with over 7% of annual GDP growth. According to
World Trade Organization (WTO), Vietnam is one of the best invested environments with the
stable politics. Moreover, Vietnamese capital market is rapidly increasing which create a lot of
advantages for the business to reach the mass capital. There are more and more foreign investors
coming to Vietnam to seek opportunities of investment. Nevertheless, the recent development of
Vietnam Economy is accessed not to deserve its potentials. Besides, the financial crisis in 2007-
2008 made its weakness to be shown clearly such as the inadequate management skill,
ineffective resources controlling, and operating and the challenges became more violent. This is
a time for reforming their economic structure. Structural reform is a necessary requirement of
globalization. Vietnam must reorganize their economic structure to strengthen their competitive
advantages. With those reason above, structural reform becomes the vital policy of many

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countries that is given out by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. Structural
reform is defined as “the creation of conditions for sustained, noninflationary growth, and the
elimination of impediments to the full and efficient use of resources. Furthermore, adjustment
must permit the attainment of certain basic and widely shared social goals” (Aziz, 1990).This
program basically require developing countries reorganize the contribution of different sectors to
the economy - namely increasing the industry and service sectors instead of agriculture in which
Tourism seem a key Industry. Moreover, Tourism is not only creates very high wealth but also
implements open-door policy, cultural exchanges. It also contributes to impulses the innovation,
develop other fields, solve many social matters and create a lot of jobs for employees. With the
high potentials, Vietnam orients to grow Tourism strongly

However, the crisis of economics in recent years created a lot of challenges for Vietnam
Economy. Vietnamese Tourism is one of the industries which are affected much by crisis. With
the challenges of globalization, many tourism businesses faced to the bankruptcy. To survive,
they need to have an appropriate strategy to overcome the current difficulties and to develop
stably. One of the most important strategies is marketing strategy which helps them to reach the
news market. With the combination of mass marketing activities, innovation and creativity, they
can create the strengths to survive and develop stably and rapidly.

Starting from these issues above, I choose this topic “The Study of the Marketing Strategies
for Vietnam Tourism Board to increase visitors” to research with the hope of contributing to
market the image of Vietnam Tourism to the world and foreign visitors. I myself want to
contribute to increase the comparative advantages of Vietnam Tourism and help it to grow
actively, completely and stably.

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 MARKETING

VIETNAM REALLY NEEDS VERY GOOD MARKETING

Any product or service or brand wanting come to consumers or customers also needs supports of
marketing. Marketing is taking place everywhere and contacting to us every day. However,
Marketing has a lot of different way of understanding. Of course, some people wrongly
understand or non-completely understand marketing. Substance of marketing is not to increase
markets, marketing, sell the products or services, advertise, research the market simply. Those
are small part of marketing. According to Peter F. Ducker – an important theorist of
management- “…the aim of marketing is to make sell superfluous. The aim of marketing is to
know and understand customer so well that the product and service fits him and sell itself”
(Ducker, 2007, p.16). Today, Marketing is understood wider, more diversified, and complicated
because Marketing is not only in production, service, and business but also in life to satisfy
higher demands of human and open new and implicit demands. Marketing is very big
conception. Thus, Marketing has many definitions. Followings are some different definitions
during its development:

 Marketing is defined as “the social process by which individuals and groups obtain what
they need and want through creating and exchanging product and value with order“(Kotler
et al., 1999, p.10)

 “Marketing is management process responsible for identifying, anticipating and

satisfying customer requirements profitably” (Shaw, 2004)

 “Marketing is the activity, set of institutions, and processes of creating, communicating,

delivering, and exchanging offerings that have value for customers, clients, partners, and
society at large” (American Marketing Association, 2007)

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IMPORTANT ROLE OF MARKETING IN VIETNAM TOURISM

Marketing plays an important role in tourism. It directs, controls, and combines tourism
activities. With advertisement, promotion and campaign, Vietnam could introduce many
beautiful, peaceful and lively places to others countries and provide enough necessary
information to potential customers in Asia, Europe and America. Marketing has a huge impact. It
determines revenue, cost, profit and thus effectiveness of production and business activities.
Besides, marketing is an important tool that helps Vietnam to position their brand and good
image in other markets.

To understand the customers, Tourism industry needs to collect necessary primary data and
information from the survey questionnaires and the secondary data from the official government
website for analyzing customers’ demands better. Beside, the industry could analyze the capacity
and quality of products and services as well as prices, promotion.

When life’s standard becomes higher and more diversified, marketing activities must connect
closely innovation of creating new products and services to satisfy increasing customers’
demands. Next, they can get high revenue, profit and long-term development

So Vietnam tourism should require high quality of marketing, a vital tool that helps Vietnam to
approach to foreign markets and satisfy them.

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MARKETING STRATEGY IN VIETNAM TOURISM

There are many Marketing Strategies but this dissertation just focus on researching some
following Marketing Strategies that is believed to be suitable for Vietnam Tourism Industry such
as International Marketing and Marketing Mix

“International Marketing is the multinational process of planning and executing the conception,
pricing, promotion, a customer, and an organization” (Onkvisit and Shaw, 2007) or “the
performance of business activities that direct the flow of a company’s goods and services to
consumers or users in more than one nation for a profit.” (Cateora and Graham, 2006) The core
contents of International Marketing include researching international markets, planning strategies
of penetrating international markets, planning products development, building distribution
channels, valuating products, and promoting products

The marketing mix has been defines as “the controllable variables the company puts together to
satisfy target markets and achieve the firm’s objective” (Brown et al., 1991, p.24). The vital
components of Marketing Mix include Price, Product, Place, and Promotion decisions.

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The Products of the Vietnam tourism are the tour packages include foods, accommodations,
transportation, airplane-tickets and other activities etc... They could be varied in size, quality,
and so on which aims to satisfy customers’ demands. With each product will have different price
from economic to high class and deluxe. So the customers could easy to choose suitable
packages. For convenience, customers could buy the tour packages in their own countries
through tour agencies, websites and phone call. Every year, Vietnam tourism will hold three
exhibits in other countries and provides special promotion.

MARKETING PROCESS
Marketing process model

The Marketing Process, Adopted from Kotler on Marketing

Vietnam should go through all 5 steps such as: research, STP (Segment, Targeting, and
Positioning), Marketing Mix, Implement and Control.

Vietnam Tourism need to research of collecting and analyzing data and information of markets,
customers, consumers and environment. The research process aids Vietnam to define
opportunities and repair the plan of penetrating markets in Asia, Europe and America.

Tourism industry must define their target markets and position their brand. To do that, it is vital
to divide market into smaller markets basing on segment criterion. Choosing target markets and

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concentrates all resources to marketing. So that other countries can recognize the products and
brand among others. From here, the brand and image of Vietnam tourism could be aware

When the target markets are clearly defined, some suitable marketing strategies will aim these
markets. Research stage set up foundation for Marketing Mix.

After building suitable Marketing Mix, the industry should implement this strategy carefully
with the clear and detailed plan.

Finally, controlling and managing the plan and accesses the activities’ effectiveness.

VIETNAM GOVERNMENT POLICIES OF TOURISM DEVELOPMENT

On 22 July 2002, Vietnam Government approved The Tourism Development Policy from 2001
to 2010 with some following basic objectives:

Tourism Industry become a key economic sector by focus on taking advantages of nature,
ecology, historical traditional culture, mobilizing domestic resources, combining international
cooperation and supports that contribute to industrialize and modernize Vietnam and lead
Vietnam to become very high considerable tourist area after 2010.

 In 2005: The number of foreign tourist reaches to 3.5 million, of domestic tourists
reaches to 16 million and revenue of Tourism reaches to over 2 billion US Dollars.

 In 2010: The number of foreign tourist reaches to 6 million, of domestic tourists reaches
to 26 million and revenue of Tourism reaches to over 4.5 billion US Dollars.

(Source: Vietnam National Administration of Tourism, Policy: 97/2002/QĐ-TTg)

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With these policies, researching has clear goals and scientific foundations. These policies can
provide the framework to research

CHAPTER 3: THE METHODOLOGY OF THIS DISSERTATION

THE OBJECTIVES OF DISSERTATION

By collecting data, analyzing both of current strengths and weakness of Vietnam Tourism,
comparing with the competitors, this dissertation releases some of core matters of marketing that
need to be care about in next 10 years.

Combining the some theories of modern marketing and synthesizing and analyzing reality of
Vietnam Tourism Industry, this dissertation also proposes some marketing strategies for Vietnam
Tourism development.

SCOPE OF RESEARCHING

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Developing Vietnam Tourism has many activities such as finance, investment, marketing,
training and so on. With all my effort my dissertation is limited in some following ranges:

 Analyzing Vietnam Tourism with the focus is the middle area of Vietnam that attracts
most of tourists coming to Vietnam.

 Focusing on marketing activities

 Data is collected aim to analysis reality of Vietnam Tourism Industry, especially its
image in awareness of foreign customers and consumers such as number of foreign
customers travel in Vietnam annually, time they stay and so on.

THE METHODOLOGY OF DISSERTATION

Accessing and analyzing in this dissertation are essentially used following scientific foundation
and methodologies:

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INTERNATIONAL MARKETING, DIFFERENTIATION BETWEEN SERVICES
AND TANGIBLE PRODUCTS

Clear differentiation between services and tangible products is that services “are not goods
(tangible products), such as accounting, banking, cleaning, consultancy, education, insurance,
know how, medical treatment, transportation. Sometimes services are difficult to identify
because they are closely associated with a good; such as the combination of a diagnosis with the
administration of a medicine. No transfer of possession or ownership takes place when services
are sold, and they (1) cannot be stored or transported, (2) are instantly perishable, and (3) come
into existence at the time they are bought and consumed” (BusinessDictionary.com, 2010). Thus,
it needs different marketing strategies. Moreover, this dissertation focus on create a marketing
strategy to introduce image of Vietnam Tourism to the world so International Marketing
Theories is a useful tool of its development.

METHODS OF ANALYZING AND ACCESSING ANNUAL FINANCIAL REPORT

Data should be collected to synthesizing and analyzing. This process can modify these data to
useful information that can be used to access the activities of Vietnam Tourism Industry such as
annual financial report, the number of tourists

HISTORICAL MATERIALISM

Every phenomenon can be explained by logical reason. With those, we can combine researching
methods with theories and realities, collect date, information, quota of Vietnam Tourism that can
be collected on media, newspapers, television, internet and tourist businesses’ website as well as
government website to give out the appropriate and logical ideas. These are the core
methodologies that are used in this dissertation mainly.

QUESTIONNAIRE METHODOLOGY

Vietnamese Tourism Companies contact directly the tourists so they can understand the tourists
clearly. Questionnaire is the best approach to get the information of international tourists’ taste
when they chose Vietnam as their destination in their holiday. I set up a questionnaire to collect

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the information to recognize Vietnamese comparative advantages as well as the weaknesses of
Vietnam Tourism Industry. Moreover, the data collected from them can show what appropriate
marketing strategies they suggest to Vietnam Tourism Industry. Besides, this dissertation just
focus on how to marketing Vietnam Tourism Industry on global market, so the questionnaire
concentrate on collect information on international area. The respondents include 10 Vietnamese
Tourism Companies that have the biggest number of international tourist last year and have the
statistic numbers in this survey. The questionnaire must include the information of these
companies, tourists’ taste, and the suggested marketing strategies as below:

The questionnaires and data are provided:

No. Questions
Company's information
1 How much experience do you have in Vietnamese Tourism Industry?
2 How many international tourists did you server last year?
3 How much was your total revenue last year on international area?
4 Do you have any survey of international customers?
5 How many agencies/brands you have in distribution?
6 How many total employees do you have?
International tourists' information
1 How many times they come to Vietnam for travelling?
2 What region/country do they come from?
3 How old are they?
4 What make they feel pleased when they traveled Vietnam?
5 How did they know about Vietnam?
6 Did they complain anything? If so, what did they complain?
7 What was their recommendation?
8 Do they intend to come back?
The suggested marketing strategies for Vietnam Tourism Industry
1 What are criterions you use to segment your markets?
2 What your target markets?
3 What comparative advantages of Vietnam Tourism Industry do you think?
4 What weaknesses of Vietnam Tourism Industry do you think?
5 What is appropriate marketing positioning?
6 What is needed to be improved and mentioned?
7 What are the appropriate price decisions?
8 What are the appropriate product decisions?
9 What are the approriate distribution decisions?
10 What are the approriate promotion decisions?
11 What are suggested to penetrate the global market (international marketing)?

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 12 What is the appropriate marketing process?

CHAPTER 4: DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYZING PROCESS

SUMMARY OF SURVEY RESULT

This chapter will analyze the survey result collected from 3 tourism agencies:

Saigontourist was established 1975 in Ho Chi Minh city, one of the leading tourism
corporations in Vietnam. Saigontourist could provide 54 hotels, 28 restaurants with 13 resorts
and complexes. Moreover, it cooperates with 9 joint ventures with foreign partners.

Website: www.saigon-tourist.com

Telephone: (84.8) 3829 2291 - 3822 5874 - 3822 5887 - 3829 5000

Address: 23 Le Loi, District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Viettravel started the business in 199, now one of the well-know trademark in Vietnam with
providing unique tour for foreigners from Japanese, Europeans and Koreans. It distributed to the

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success by organizing the international events: The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)
of 2006, The Vesak of 2008, The Southeast Asia Undergraduates Sports Festival, etc…

Website: www.travel.com.vn

Telephone: (84.8) 38 22 8898

Address: 190 Pasteur, District 3, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

FIDITOUR TOURIST COMPANY

Fiditour Tourist Company began in 1989, one of the first travel companies in Ho Chi Minh
City. It is now one of the top ten travel company in Vietnam. As a member of World Travel
association as: PATA, ASTA JATA, etc…Europeans, Japanese, French and German are the
loyal customers of Fiditour as the high experience and language influent of staff.

Website: www.fiditour.com

Telephone: 84.8.3914 1414 – 3914 15 16

Address: 127 - 129 - 129A Nguyen Hue Street, District 1, HCM City, VN

The Result of the survey

THE RESULT OF THE SURVEY

Segmentation Basis %
Geographic
Region/country
Europe 90
America 80
Japan 80
Other 40
City or metro-area size
Big cities 100
Middle cities 70
Others 30
Climate
Frigid and temperate 100
Others 50
Demographic
Income
Over 80,000USD/year 70

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 60,000-80,000 80
40,000-59,999 100
20,000-39,999 50
Under 20,000 40
Age
Over 60
50-59 90
40-49 80
30-39 40
20-29 100
Under 20 30
Social class
Upper upper 50
Upper 90
Upper Middle 100
Middle 60
Upper lower 0
Lower 0
Family life cycle
Single 90
Just-marriage 80
Old couple 50
Married 50

FINDING AND ANALYSIS

MARKET SEGMENTATION

According to survey, most of big Vietnamese Tourism Companies choose the following criterion
to segment their market with the average percentage of agreement

Market Segmentation

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The collected data above show the criterions that Vietnamese Tourism companies chose to
segment their markets. All of them choose the criteria “region/country, age and social class” as
their primary criteria.

Religion/Country

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Vietnam realized that most foreign tourists come from China, America, Japan, Korea, Taiwan,
France, and Australia. These countries hold a high proportion of international visitors in
Vietnam. It should be focus on these countries by providing reasonable package price, good
promotion, and international advertisement. Vietnam tourism needs to keep these numbers
growing up by other strategies: provide better service, unique products as well as perfect
organization, etc.

Target countries

Europe, America and Japan will be the 3 largest customers for Vietnam Tourism. All 3 of them
having average of high income and increasing need of travelling.

Age of Tourists

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Most of people come to Vietnam when they are about 20-29 years or 50-59 years. To attract
young tourist, Vietnam tourism must provide suitable activities such as: at the beach surfing,
sailing, boating, papaya, snorkeling, diving etc… are encouraged. These sport activities above
will contribute Vietnam Tourism a healthy image. Whenever foreign tourists come to Vietnam,
they will realize these activities as a characteristic of Vietnam. Vietnam Tourism should make
sure that these activities distinguish from others in Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and
Malaysia…etc.

Until Vietnam has a highly differentiated products and services, it is more advantages to
advertise in global market. And the most power advertising is mouth to mouth. If you are good
then you will be well known by others.

MARKET POSITIONING

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When asking someone freely about a beautiful beach in Asia, they usually refer to Bali in
Indonesia, Sentosa in Singapore, or Phuket in Thailand but they rarely know Nha Trang Bay,
even though Nha Trang Bay was acknowledged as one of the most beautiful bay on the world by
Forbes Magazine’s vote. It means Vietnam Tourism lack correct marketing strategy and it lack
competitive advantage in itself. These following figures can show you this problem.

The Foreign Tourists (Thousand)

Year Malaysia Thailand Singapore Indonesia Vietnam
2003 10500 10000 6127 4467 2429
2004 15703 11600 8328 5321 2927
2005 16431 11450 9543 5002 3467
2006 17507 13820 9800 4871 3583
2007 20572 14450 10300 5508 4171
(Source: IPAVietnam, 2010)

After determining the target market and the specific market strategy, Vietnam Tourism should
positioned product, brand, or organization. In the busy and stressful life nowadays, Vietnam
Tourism should build the image of peaceful and beautiful island with the local friendship. To
increase their advantages, they should aim to the position “Peace and Humanity” with the strong
agreement of 80% of Vietnamese Tourism companies.

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Vietnam Tourism should be known as an island of heaven with beautiful long beach, intense
sunlight of tropical zone, diversification of eating and drinking and the local friendship. Some of
beaches are Nha Trang, Ha Long Bay, Nha Trang, Sơn Tra, Sam Son, Do Son, Cua Lo, Da
Nhay, Phu Quoc Island, etc…

Nha Trang beach

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Ha Long Bay (the world’s wonder)

Son Tra Beach

When someone thinks about Vietnam Tourism they feel peaceful environment and comfortable
holiday. To get this position, Vietnamese Tourism companies and the government should be well
organized and corporate.

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Why do foreign tourists choose Vietnam as their destination?

Most of foreign tourist chose Vietnam because of its natural beauty and culture and history. They
are curious about Vietnam as a long-standing cultural and historical country. One of the most
well-known places is Hoi An Ancient Town (UNESCO’s world heritage)

Hoi An Ancient Town

It had not changed since the 19th century with mix culture of Chinese, Japanese, Dutch and
Indians as the main trading centers of Southeast Asia in the 16th century. Hoi An Town is proud
of old two-storey building with colorful lanterns, silk, handicrafts and antique shops. Hand
tailored suit made in less than four hours with many choice of customization. It costs about less
than one hundred dollar.

Peace, Humanity, Health and History are the strengths of Vietnam Tourism. This is the most
appropriate for travel companies to market to the foreigners.

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MARKETING STRATEGY

PRICE
Social Class

In the capability of human, financial resource and Vietnam Tourism will focus on market with
middle, upper middle and uper class. With each target market, the budget for them will be
different. The wide range of choice in service, hotels, food and activities are provided.

With the Upper class, the resort are more appropriate from $170 to $300 one night/person

Living in thatched houses, wooden flooring and will remind the foreign 30 years ago of Vietnam.
These types of wooden house only are seen in the highlands or countryside. Staying here, the
tourists feel very peaceful and relax, out of the traffic jams and pollution. In addition, Tourists
come here could enjoy cooking the raw materials in the resort as vegetables grow in the resorts.

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With the Middle class, the tourist could have the benefit of home stay with the countryside
people in the mountain. They will know the ways of travelling and cooking and even take
pleasure in the events here

Vietnam has a long 4000 years history of cultures and many big holiday events annually.

Life in Floating boat in Mekong River Delta

The tourists could mix with the folks in the countryside life. It is very interesting to learn new
culture for short time.

To increase the foreign tourists, Vietnam Tourism should have a good commission plan for their
partners or agencies because Vietnam Tourism is still new on the international tourism market.

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PRODUCT

The products should be focus on “Peace and Humanity” and unique. Vietnam Tourism could
provide some rare event consider the following activities:

“Xich Lo” tour

This kind of transportation now only exists in Vietnam and Malaysia. Most of foreigners are
interested in travelling around the city.

Or “Mua Sap” dances

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These activities are cheap and easily created. However, they could give the foreign tourist a fresh
feeling with first time doing.

Vietnam Tourism must research the quality of competitor’s products. Advertisement needs to be
concentrated our specialty. Advertisement should imply quality, benefit, proposed position
“Peace and Humanity”. It is also easy to remember and suitable for target market’s manners and
customs. Thailand is good example for hospitality. You can see many smiles of Thailand when
you come to this country. Vietnam Tourism cannot change the local but they can change their
employees.

Rich Diversity of Food type

With Europeans, the famous Vietnamese foods are: Pho Noodle, Fresh rolls with the peanut
source, etc… The Tourism should provide wide range of cuisine for Japanese, Chinese,
American and European.

For American and European, most common are: sandwiches and salads, hamburgers, French
fries, steaks. In the beverage, they have: fruit juice, soft-drink, ice cream, etc…

Not only the delicious food but also the good service, the staffs must know the culture, etiquette
of each country and the differences between the Asian and the Europeans. Employees should

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know how to greet the customers, display food in right order, and understand the gestures or
signal of customers.

Hotel Room

With the advantage of cheap labor, wide range of tropical fruit, Vietnam tourism could hire more
employees for the best service. They could provide more free services than just rooms to sleep
such as: free coconut, fruit juice or even free washing machine and shining shoes. Because the
average salary of cleaners, waiter is about $100 in Vietnam. But these staffs must be trained
carefully otherwise it could give the opposite effects. The Tourism companies could use these
benefits as the special service in Vietnam.

Provide the distinctive traditional garden bungalow

This type of house is long time ago and it is cheap but extraordinary house.

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With the best efforts, Vietnam Tourism could satisfy international tourists by offering the great
food, fabulous service and unique hotel room in quiet location and ocean view etc…Vietnam
Tourism hope that with the right strategy: good choice of products, service, price, promotion and
marketing, staying in Vietnam always give the tourists a wonderful time.

To do this, Vietnam Tourism has to plan to build a chain of high class hotels, luxury resorts,
great restaurants and high quality products. The tourism industry should promote strong and
healthy images in order to encourage foreigners come to Vietnam. When they come first time,
the tourism industry makes sure that they will come back to Vietnam again. It is extremely vital
for Vietnam Tourism industry in the long term.

PLACE (DISTRIBUTION)

Vietnam Tourism will set up the distribution channel of its products. It also makes a convenience
for customer to buy their products easily. They should compare with competitor’s distribution
channel. Building a commodious distribution channel is the best way for Vietnam Tourism to
penetrate the new market and increase the market segment but it require Vietnam Tourism high-
cost for controlling their agencies. Specifically, Vietnam should participate in all exhibits,
conference and other activities in global tourism industry to introduce Vietnam Tourism.
Vietnam tourism should have good relationship with foreign partners in many markets around
the world. Choosing the partner should meet some criterion such as financial capability,
experience, brand name, and selling capability.

PROMOTION

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It means the way Vietnam Tourism promotes the sale. Vietnam Tourism should focus on
supported sale policy. They have a lot of policies to support their channel such as commission
and discount policy. On the other hand, they influence customer to try their products by coupon,
payment discount, and rewards. Especially, they should use the advertisement effectively.

Advertising

Chart 4: Why do foreign tourists know Vietnam?

Half of them mostly knew Vietnam through foreign article and the introduction of their friend
and family. That shows the weakness of marketing of Vietnam Tourism Industry.

The Tourism Industry and government consider most effective marketing in other countries:
advertise Vietnamese attractions on newspaper, travelling channel on television and website in
America, Europe, Japan, etc.... The most important tool is Public Relationship. Media can create
Vietnam Tourism brand name rapidly. At 80% of companies believed that organizing the
international events such as SEA GAME, Miss Universe can contribute to marketing Vietnamese
Image and its Tourism Industry. Recently, Vietnam Government spent 204.000 USD to buy
advertisement on BBC that really a good sign for Vietnam Tourism (VOVNews, 2009). These
efforts will increase great awareness of the foreigners about Vietnamese images.

31
THE SECONDARY DATA ANALYSIS OF VIETNAM TOURISM

On 27 August 1978, Vietnam National Association of Tourism was established with the role of
directing and controlling Vietnam tourism activities to develop Vietnam Tourism Industry stably
and permanently. However, Vietnam under state subsidy in 1908s, economy did not have
development remarkably, even was behind the times. Tourism was not mentioned.

In recent years, when Vietnam was implemented “open-door policy” and joining to global
economics, economy got many remarkable achievements. Tourism activities were focused more
and Tourism was defined one of the key sectors of Vietnam economy.

Growth Growth
Year Foreign tourists rate (%) Domestic tourists rate (%)
1990 250,000 1,000,000
1991 300,000 20 1,500,000 50
1992 400,000 33 2,000,000 33

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 1993 670,000 68 5,100,000 155
1994 1,020,000 52 6,200,000 22
1995 1,351,300 32 6,900,000 11
1996 1,607,200 19 7,300,000 6
1997 1,715,600 7 8,500,000 16
1998 1,520,100 (11) 9,600,000 13
1999 1,781,800 17 10,000,000 4
2000 2,140,100 20 11,200,000 12
2001 2,330,050 9 11,700,000 4
2002 2,627,988 13 13,000,000 11
2003 2,428,735 (8) 13,500,000 4
2004 2,927,873 21 14,500,000 7
2005 3,477,500 19 16,100,000 11
2006 3,583,486 3 17,500,000 9
2007 4,229,349 18 19,200,000 10
Average 1,908,948 18.42 9,711,111 21.04
(Source: Vietnam National Association of Tourism)

According to this figures above, the number of both of foreign and domestic tourists increased
annually with average of 18.42% in foreign tourists and 21.04% in domestic tourists, especially
in 1993, the amount of tourists changed suddenly.

Revenue of Tourism also was increase by time

Year Revenue (billion VND) Growth rate (%)

1990 1,340
1991 1,680 25.37
1992 2,830 68.45
1993 5,250 85.51
1994 8,000 52.38
1995 8,730 9.13
1996 9,500 8.82
1997 10,060 5.89
1998 14,000 39.17
1999 15,600 11.43
2000 17,400 11.54
2001 20,500 17.82
2002 23,000 12.20
2003 22,000 -4.35
2004 26,000 18.18
2005 30,000 15.38

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 2006 51,000 70.00
2007 56,000 9.80
Average 17,938 25.37
(Source: Vietnam National Association of Tourism)

From 1990 to 2007, Vietnam Tourism Revenue rose remarkably with the annual average of
17,938 billion VND and the annual average of growth rate was 25.37%. Especially, in 2006 and
2007, this number changed suddenly and reached at over 50.000 billion VND.

With these numbers above, it can be said that Vietnam Tourism Industry are developing
considerably with the care of Vietnamese government and community.

THE VIETNAM TOURISM‘S ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES

With the eruption of information technology in last decade, tourists have many choices for their
holidays that are making Vietnam Tourism in particular and Tourism in general to confront a lot
of challenges. The competition among tourist areas on the world becomes more violent. Just only
in Southeast Asia that countries have many similarities of culture, geography have drastic races
between tourist spots in order to attract visitors such as Sentosa in Singapore, Phuket in
Thailand, Bali in Indonesia and Borocay in Philippines. Thus, what dose Vietnam Tourism has to
attract foreign tourists and where are target markets of Vietnam Tourism? In marketing theory,
what are the comparative advantages of Vietnam Tourism? And what are its disadvantages?

One of the biggest Vietnam Tourism’s advantages is the nature. At 82% of international tourists
traveled to Vietnam because of its good weather and natural beautiful sceneries. Nature gives a

34
special treatment to Vietnam with many beautiful tourist spots and a long beach. In 2004,
Vietnam has 2741 national vestiges and tourist attractions. In 2010, Vietnam has 5 vestiges that
acknowledged as a world inherited properties by United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization (UNESSCO) include Hue ancient capital, Hoi An Ancient Town, My Son
Sanctuary, Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park and especially Ha Long Bay that has just
acknowledged as a wonder of nature by UNESSCO. Moreover, Vietnam is the 27 th nation on the
world that has ocean and most of them are beautiful (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism of
Vietnam, 2010)

Next, Vietnam has a long-standing history with the 4000-year culture that is an attraction with
most of international tourists with the agreement of 74% of them, especially Sa Huynh Culture
with hundred-year feudal royal dynasty. Moreover, it also has a lot of war vestige belonging 2
wars between Vietnamese and French and American. Those are mostly the attraction of tourism.

Finally, convenient traffic and the citizens’ friendship are also the advantages of Vietnam. It
takes about litter time flight from Ho Chi Minh City and Ha Noi to other countries. The foreign
tourists can visit the biggest cities of Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City) and take a rest in one of the
most beautiful beach on their trip.

However, Vietnam Tourism has also its own disadvantages. The downgrading of historical and
war vestiges without the attention of government makes the tourism less attractive to the visitors.
Tours seem to become more uninspired or mediocre. Tourists simply come there for the rest or to
do sightseeing.

Moreover, lack of the national strategy is also a disadvantage. At 28% of international tourists
know Vietnam through their friend and family who used to come to Vietnam. This number is
45% through an introduction of some foreign articles that they read incidentally. The other
channel is advertisement of some Vietnamese Tourism Companies on their website with number
of 22 per cents. Vietnamese Government should have more effective and appropriate strategies
to help national tourism to develop firmly such as holding a national tourism event or using the
media especially the internet to advertise Vietnamese Tourism. They must have good marketing
strategies. They also focus on developing infrastructure especially traffic to make a good
condition for development’s tourism. China is a good instance; they spent 3 billion US dollars in

35
building the railway between Beijing and Xizang to grow the tourism of Xizang, a mysterious
region of Buddhism.

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION
With the industrialization and modernization, Vietnam Economy develops more and more.
Vietnam becomes a remarkably developing country in Asian area as well as on the world.
Vietnamese economics is very aggressive and potential with over 7% of annual GDP growth
rate. According to WTO, Vietnam is one of the safest investment environments on the world
with the stable politics. Moreover, Vietnam has a rapidly developing capital market. Thus,
Vietnam has enough convenient condition for an investor to seek a good new venture.
Globalization put many countries into the challenges such as competitive pressure, perfection
and innovation of institution of governmental administration, and challenges of human resource
and so on. The development’s motivation grew weak and the challenges seem show clearly. That
is time to think the structural reform which is not a discussed topic, but must put into the

36
complete resolution in order to find out a new wave of growth. This process requires Vietnam to
use their comparative advantages to set up suitable strategies.

With high potentials, Vietnam Tourism was chosen a key economic sector in the process of
structural reform by government. In recent years, Vietnam Tourism increased considerably and
contributes 13.1% to Vietnam GDP. However, can Vietnam Tourism development stably and
permanently with only high potentials. The answer is “no” definitely. The viewpoint “good wine
needs no bush” was not appropriate in the violent competition nowadays. Vietnam Tourism
needs national directions of government and combines with the right marketing strategies that
are useful to introduce image of Vietnam Tourism to the world. However, these strategies need
the supports of Vietnamese tourism business to create collective strengths.

With the best effort, the dissertation focus on collecting and analyzing the data and information
to suggest some directions of marketing strategies to contribute to build good image of Vietnam
Tourism. I really hope my dissertation demonstrates enough analyzed data and information as
well as the ideas for the readers to have an overview of Vietnam Tourism Marketing Strategy.

APPENDIX

THE TOURIST AGENCIES’ COLLECTED DATA IN 2009

International tourists' information Answers %

How many times they come to Vietnam for
1 travelling? 1,4

2 What region/country do they come from?

China 14
America 11
Japan 10
Korea 10
France 5
Taiwan 7
Australia 6
Malaysia 4.5

37
 Thailand 4
Others 28.5
3 How old are they?
Over 60 5
50-59 27
40-49 12
30-39 15
20-29 38
Under 20 3
What make they feel pleased when they
4 traveled Vietnam?
Natural beautiful spot 82
Culture and history 74
Others 10
5 How did they know Vietnam
Friend and family 28
Vietnamese Website 22
Foreign articles 45
Others 5

Did they complain anything? If so, what did

6 they complain?
Bad traffic 68
Under-standard accommodation 34
Others 23

7 What was their recommendation?

Improve level of quality 63
Diversify the products 71
Good organization 45
Others 12

8 Do they intend to come back?

Yes 73
No 27
The suggested marketing strategies for Vietnam
Tourism Industry
What are criterions you use to segment your
1 markets?
Region/country 100
City or metro-area size 70
Climate 50
Income 60
Age 90

38
 Social class 80
Family life cycle 70
2 What your target markets?
Geographic
Region/country
Europe 90
America 80
Japan 80
Other 40
City or metro-area size
Big cities 100
Middle cities 70
Others 30
Climate
Frigid and temperate 100
Others 50
Demographic
Income
Over 80,000USD/year 70
60,000-80,000 80
40,000-59,999 100
20,000-39,999 50
Under 20,000 40

Age
Over 60 40
50-59 90
40-49 80
30-39 40
20-29 100
Under 20 30
Social class
Upper upper 50
Upper 90
Upper Middle 100
Middle 60
Upper lower 0
Lower 0
Family life cycle
Single 90
Just-married 80
Old couple 50
Married 50

39
 What is approriate marketing positioning for
5 Vietnam Tourism Industry?
Peace 80
Humanity 80
Diversification 40
Friendly 30
Environmental 50
Cultural land 60
Beautiful country 50

6 What is needed to be improved and mentioned?

5S (Sea, Sun, Smile, Sand and
Stomach) 70
5H (Hospitality, Hotel, History,
Health and Humanity) 80
Traffic 30
Advertisement 60
Others 30

8 What are the appropriate products decisions?

Improve level of quality 70
Compare with other competitors 80
Diversify the products 60
Others 30

9 What are the appropriate distribution decisions?

Capacity (finance and selling) 70
Experience 60
Brand name 80
Others 30

10 What are the appropriate promotion decisions?

Buying international
advertisement 100
Commission and discount policies
for agencies 70
Public relationship (international) 50
Organize international event 80

What are suggested to penetrate the global

11 market (international marketing)?
Determine target markets 50
Predict the risk 60
Determine the method 50

40
 Determine the distribution 60
Determine strengths and
weaknesses 90
Mention the diversification of
culture 50
Others 20

12 What is the appropriate marketing process?

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