Compare Strengths and Weaknesses Between Hotels

Vietnam has gradually shifted its economic structure towards trade and services, in which the tourism sector has been increasingly focused on investment and development. At the same time, restaurant and hotel business activities have gradually improved to meet the development needs of tourism. In 2000, the Government issued Decree No. 39/2000/ND_CP, dated August 24, 2000, regulating tourist accommodation establishments and State management of accommodation establishments. Decision No. 02/2001/QD-TCD L, dated April 27, 2001 of the General Department of Tourism on supplementing and amending hotel classification standards. The issuance of policies helps hotels that meet standards such as Hotel Continental Saigon have a legal corridor to operate, while hindering the operation of accommodation establishments that do not meet industry standards.

In addition, the Government also creates a positive operating environment such as: simplifying immigration procedures for international visitors, creating good opportunities for foreign investment, thus attracting many business guests to explore the market and seek investment opportunities. This is a good opportunity for hotel businesses if they know how to attract and exploit effectively.

Launching a campaign to return to the roots for overseas Vietnamese is also a long-term orientation. More than three million overseas Vietnamese will be an effective channel for information and promotion of Vietnamese tourism. To attract overseas Vietnamese to visit their homeland and travel, the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism has a plan to exempt visas for overseas Vietnamese. In addition, the Government also has a policy of abolishing visas for Japan, Korea and some Southeast Asian countries, causing the number of visitors from these markets to increase. Most of the customers of Hotel Continental Saigon are international visitors, so these visa exemption policies will attract a large number of tourists from these countries, thereby contributing to increasing the market for the hotel.

However, there are also difficulties such as unstable and unclear policies, regulations and laws of the State. This is the reason why hotel businesses face many difficulties in terms of legality, documents and is also a barrier for foreign companies to invest in Vietnam.

 Social factors:

Tourism is a comprehensive economic sector. It is closely related to culture. Vietnam is a peaceful and stable country. Vietnam has a long history with glorious golden pages of the nation. Vietnamese people have their own cultural features that are characteristic of Eastern culture. Vietnamese people are dynamic, enthusiastic, and have the desire to build a friendly, prosperous and harmonious community. That is one of the reasons why tourists choose Vietnam as their destination for their vacation during the year, especially the prosperous, urban and bustling Saigon at night.

However, there are still some people who are not aware of developing tourism and protecting the environment (for example, stalking and harassing international guests and littering in public places).

 Natural factors:

Ho Chi Minh City has two distinct seasons: rainy and sunny. The average temperature all year round is 27.5 0 C, tourism activities are relatively favorable all year round.

Ho Chi Minh City is a major economic-tourism center of the country, always accounting for about 54%-66% of the total number of foreign visitors to Vietnam in the past 5 years. But it also leads to serious consequences such as environmental pollution, traffic jams, tourist solicitation, degraded drainage system leading to local flooding in the city, ... reducing the image of the city's tourism in the eyes of international friends.

 Technology factors:

The rapid development of science and technology and the internet has changed life dramatically. People live in a comfortable environment with modern devices and their relationships are no longer limited to a locality or country but extend to the whole world. Moreover, modern technologies are established such as Sort-wave, MDA ... to adapt to the needs of current restaurant and hotel services, helping the service not take as much time as with the previous manual work.

Hotels today are constantly investing in replacing modern equipment, upgrading products to best serve customers in terms of both luxurious facilities and service style. However, the strong development of technology factors is also disadvantageous if the hotel does not keep up with the modern pace of life in the world, cannot best meet the increasingly demanding needs of customers, gradually losing its competitive position compared to competitors, leading to increasingly declining revenue.

In addition to modern equipment, the service style of the staff is also an important factor contributing to the success of the hotel. Currently, in Ho Chi Minh City, there are many schools providing professional training in the restaurant and hotel industry. In particular, Saigon Tourism Corporation has also established Saigon Tourism Vocational College to ensure input human resources for hotels in the city.

Micro environment

 Supplier:

As a four-star hotel, not only must the equipment used in the hotel be of high quality, beautiful and unique designs, but Hotel Continental Saigon also requires the ingredients used to prepare food to be fresh, clean, high quality, safe and hygienic with reasonable prices. Currently, the hotel has good relationships with raw material suppliers as well as equipment manufacturing companies, the cooperation time is quite long, so both sides have created trust and reputation for each other.

 Customers:

For any business, customers are always an important factor, deciding the existence and development of the business. Customers often use their power to make unfavorable demands on the business regarding purchase price, product quality, and payment terms. It can be said that customers bring business opportunities to businesses but can also create pressure and take away the business's profits. To reduce the power of customers,

Hotels need to improve product quality and create a professional service style.

As mentioned above, the main customer market of Hotel Continental Saigon is foreign and high-class Vietnamese business guests; European and Asian tourists. These customers have different characteristics, needs and interests, so they are divided into different customer groups to have appropriate services to meet each segment.

 Competitors:

Due to its location right in the center of Ho Chi Minh City and having the same class as Hotel Cont inent al Saigon, Grand, Kim Do, Palace, and Du xton are four hotels considered direct competitors of Continental Saigon.

Table 2.6: Statistics on the size of hotels

Hotel Continental Saigon	Grand Hotel	Kim Do Hotel	Saigon Palace Hotel	Duxton Saigon Hotel
Number of rooms	81	107	130	162	198
Restaurant	2	2	1	2	2
Conference	250 pax	160 pax	600 pax	150 pax	300 pax

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Comparisons between competitors can be made in various aspects through Table 2.7.

Table 2.7: Comparison of strengths and weaknesses between hotels

Hotel

Hotel Continental Saigon

Strengths

- Convenient location, right in the city center.

- Recognized as "the oldest hotel in Vietnam" with 130 years of history.

- The hotel has the unique features of ancient French architecture combined harmoniously.

blends with modern architecture.

Weakness

- No parking.

- Small number of rooms.

- Due to old age and lack of upgrade, room quality has decreased.

- No swimming pool.

- Large room area.

- Cool garden restaurant.

- Prices for services from accommodation to dining are reasonable.

- Under Saigon Tourist Corporation, so it has financial potential.

- Marketing activities are focused on by the hotel.

- Good service quality, team

friendly staff

Grand Hotel

- Is the hotel with the largest market share

In Ho Chi Minh City, room occupancy is always at over 95%.

- Is a long-standing hotel,

have reputation in the market

- Convenient location, right in the city center, near the riverside.

- Ancient French architecture.

- Strong financial capacity: Grand Hotel was established in 1930 and is under Saigon Tourist Corporation. The corporation's business fields are very diverse and have great development potential.

- Marketing activities are focused on by the hotel.

- Trained staff

Professional, friendly, dedicated and very attentive service.

- Lack of parking

- Upgraded quite a long time ago in 1997 so the room quality is not at its best.

- The number of rooms is small, not keeping up with market demand.

- The hotel is under construction and upgrading, causing a lot of noise affecting guests staying there.

Kim Do Hotel

- Convenient location, right in the center city center - Managed by Saigon Tourist Corporation so it has financial potential. - Conference room with large capacity. - Good service quality, friendly staff. - Have swimming pool - Parking available.	- Not meeting the needs luxury rental - The interior is quite old, the cuisine is not diverse, not meeting the needs of customers. - The room is quite small and a bit noisy.
Saigon Palace Hotel	- Convenient location, nice view. - Restaurant on high floor, visitors can enjoy the view. - Many rooms. - Has swimming pool - Contemporary folk music and concerts are available. - Serving exotic and traditional dishes Vietnam President.	- Small meeting room - No basement parking. - Some rooms are quite small. - The internet connection is weak and inconvenient for customers.
	- Convenient location	- Belongs to a joint venture company
	- Large scale hotel with 198 rooms	Australian businesses should take time
	room.	stable, adaptive time
	- Belongs to an Australian joint venture company	with new environment.
Duxton	have relative financial potential	- Not meeting the needs
Saigon	strong .	Internet access of
Hotel	- Have advantage and experience in	client.
	marketing activities on advertising	- High price compared to competitors
	international.	supplier
	- Large meeting room
	- Trained staff

very nice, friendly and fluent

speak many languages

Through Table 2.7, we can see that the Grand Hotel has many strengths, which are more dominant than the Hotel Continental Saigon. The location and French architecture of the Grand Hotel are also very close to the Hotel Continental Saigon, so it can be said that the Grand Hotel is a very strong competitor of the Hotel Continental Saigon.

Palace Saigon Hotel and Du xton Saigon Hotel, which are larger in scale, will be very worrying competitors.

The target market of Hotel Continental Saigon is MICE guests. Although Kim Do Hotel is also under Saigontourist, it has the strength in providing conference and seminar services. This leads to fierce competition with Kim Do Hotel to gain market share.

External Factors Matrix (EFE) of Hotel Continental Saigon

The EFE matrix helps summarize and quantify the impacts of environmental factors on Hotel Continental Saigon. Developing an EFE matrix involves five steps:

- Step 1 : Make a list of the factors that determine success as identified in the macro-environment assessment process. This list includes both opportunities and threats that affect Hotel Continental Saigon and the industry.

- Step 2 : Assign a weight from 0.0 (not important) to 1.0 (very important) to each factor. The weight indicates the importance of the factor to the success of Hotel Continental Saigon in the industry. The weight can be determined by comparing successful and unsuccessful hotels in the industry, or discussed and agreed upon by the strategy team. The sum of the weights must equal 1.0.

- Step 3 : Assign a rating from 1 to 4 to each factor to show how Hotel Continental Saigon's current strategies respond to the factors.

This. Where 4 is good response, 1 is poor. These levels are based on the current strategy of Hotel Continental Saigon.

- Step 4 : Multiply the importance of each variable by its classification level (= step 2 x step 3) to determine the importance score.

- Step 5 : Add up the total importance scores of each variable to determine the total importance score for Hotel Continental Saigon. The highest possible total importance score is 4.0; the lowest is 1.0; the average is 2.5. A total score of 4.0 shows that Hotel Continental Saigon's strategy makes good use of external opportunities and minimizes the negative impact of the external environment.

Through analyzing external factors, we can establish an external factor matrix (EFE) of Hotel Cont inental Saigon.

Table 2.8 : External factors matrix (EFE) of Hotel Continental Saigon

Status

External factors	Level of importance weight	Manure type	Score important
1	Vietnam's economy today more and more developed	0.13	3	0.39
2	Global economic crisis 2009	0.13	2	0.26
3	Exchange rate fluctuations	0.12	3	0.36
4	Vietnamese political economy stable	0.12	3	0.36
5	Visa exemption policy	0.11	3	0.33
6	HCM is a potential city. business ability	0.12	4	0.48
7	Vietnam's tourism resources Male	0.09	3	0.27
8	Customer demand is increasing	0.08	3	0.24
9	Competitive pressure from rivals competitor	0.10	3	0.30
	Total	1.00		2.99

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