Current Status of Competitiveness of Ben Thanh Tourist Service Company


Company image to tourists, promotion on mass media, especially newspapers and television.

- Diversify company forms and travel products.

+ Establish multiple companies for each market segment and each tourism product to specialize the product and improve service quality for each tourist group. This both protects the brand well and maximizes market share.

+ Deepen specialization in business by separating into tour operators, wholesalers, and retail travel agents. Thanks to that, foreign travel agencies create a large customer collection system with a streamlined management system, maximizing operating costs, creating conditions to reduce product prices, increasing competitiveness in attracting customers and further expanding market share.

+ Diversify products from low to high-end, always exploit new tours and new types of tourism to maintain and develop new sources of customers.

+ Diversify target markets, exploit domestic tourist sources, stimulate tourists through strong advertising and public relations activities. Promote domestic tourism through lucky draw programs or organize special tours and attractive prices.

+ Develop shopping, entertainment, beauty care, resort, medical treatment, cultural tourism, and wild nature tourism programs to replace the usual sightseeing tours while tourists are still hesitant to go to crowded tourist attractions and places that are not highly safe.

1.3.2. Lessons applied in Vietnam

Vietnam's tourism situation in recent years has achieved great progress, but there are still many characteristics that travel businesses must consider in the process of business operations.

Vietnam's legal framework for tourism management is not yet strict enough, so there are still many foreign travel agencies that borrow the legal status of domestic companies to do business regardless of State regulations, causing unhealthy and unfair competition; at the same time, many domestic travel businesses operate without professionalism, do not respect customers, so they do not care about service quality but mainly use price dumping tricks to compete for customers.

The legal framework for cooperation between travel businesses to develop tourism business in a professional direction is still lacking.

On the business side, due to the recent transition to a market economy, the staff working in tourism is still lacking in quantity, has not received formal training, and lacks practical experience in the international business environment.


Investment of each enterprise is very limited, seriously limiting competitiveness, especially in the international tourist market.

Regarding the market, because people's income has just begun to increase, the demand for tourism has just begun to develop. Therefore, although the Vietnamese tourism market is expanding, it is actually quite small.

From the reality of tourism business in Vietnam, especially travel tourism, combined with the experience of some typical foreign travel companies, we can point out at least three lessons to apply in the travel tourism business in Vietnam. These are:

Firstly, Vietnamese travel agencies must know how to take advantage of simple, “manual” business techniques such as direct sales, mail sales, approaching customers through personal relationships, associations, etc. to suit the actual situation of our country, while boldly updating modern marketing methods such as advertising through mass media, the Internet, e-commerce, international cooperation, participation in foreign fairs and conferences, etc. to quickly move towards the professionalism of the international business environment.

Second, soon find a way to coordinate multilaterally between: travel agencies, travel agencies and tourism service providers such as airlines, transportation, hotels, restaurants, shopping stores, tourist attractions and entertainment venues...

Third, create smooth coordination between travel businesses, state tourism management agencies, and the press and television in promotion and marketing work both in the international and domestic markets.


CHAPTER 2: COMPETITIVENESS OF BEN THANH TOURISM SERVICE COMPANY


2.1 GENERAL INTRODUCTION OF BEN THANH DVDL COMPANY

2.1.1. History of formation and development

Business name: Ben Thanh Tourist Service Company English transaction name: Ben Thanh Tourist Service Company Abbreviation: BenThanh Tourist

Head office: 4-6 Ho Huan Nghiep, Ben Thanh ward, District 1,

Ho Chi Minh City

1989 is considered the year when Vietnam began to implement the open door policy, foreigners began to know Vietnam as a new destination for many different reasons such as sightseeing or looking for business investment opportunities. In order to serve the increasing tourism demand while in Ho Chi Minh City there were only a few travel companies, Ben Thanh Tourism Service Company was established under Decision No. 741/QD-UB dated December 9, 1989 of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee on the basis of merging a number of economic units of District 1 including: District 1 Food and Beverage Company, District 1 Trade Center, District 1 Distribution Station and a number of restaurants and hotels transferred by the City's Food and Hotel Department.

The company was granted a decision to establish a State-owned enterprise under Decision No. 216/QD-UB dated December 11, 1992 of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City.

According to the State's policy on the establishment of Corporations, on December 26, 1997, Ben Thanh Corporation was established on the basis of District 1 Import-Export and Service Company as the core, including 9 member units which are state-owned enterprises of District 1. Ben Thanh Tourism Service Company became an independent accounting member enterprise of Ben Thanh Corporation.

Since its establishment, Ben Thanh Tourist has continuously developed and grown, expanded its business activities domestically and internationally, and participated in many domestic and international tourism organizations and associations. Up to now, Benthanh Tourist has been an official member of the following associations and organizations:

- Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).

- Saigon Tourism Association (SATA).

- Japan Association of Travel Agents (JATA).

- Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

- Americas Travel Association (ASTA).


2.1.2. Business functions

Services-tourism: Organizing domestic and international tours, tourist transportation, airline agents, tourism services, hotels, restaurants, dance clubs, karaoke.

Trade-Import-Export: trade-import-export business, general trade activities with a network of shops serving tourists. Production, food processing and production of souvenirs serving tourists and export. Buying and selling machinery, equipment, spare parts, supplies, raw materials and consumer goods.

Remittances: remittance services, foreign currency exchange. Payment of all types of credit cards. Import-export business of gold, silver, and precious stones.

Investment: Domestic investment and joint venture with foreign countries. Office rental for domestic and foreign customers.

Employment services: Labor export services, employment settlement services.

In which, the main business function of the company is Tourism. The fields of Trade - Import - Export, Investment, Remittance, and employment services are the business fields supporting and serving the Tourism field.

2.2 COMPETITIVENESS STATUS OF THE COMPANY

2.2.1. Resources

2.2.1.1 Human resources

Table 2.1: Company's human resources by age

Unit: person

Age

18-30

31-40

41-50

51-60

Total

Quantity

386

199

155

27

767

Proportion

50.4%

25.9%

20.2%

3.5%

100%

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Current Status of Competitiveness of Ben Thanh Tourist Service Company

(Source: Ben Thanh DVDL Company)

The total number of employees of the company is 767 people, of which the age from 18-40 accounts for 76.3%, so the company has a lot of potential in terms of labor force, because workers at this age have the following characteristics: high productivity, quick to absorb new things, dynamic in work, long-term service to the company, convenient for training to improve skills.


Table 2.2: Company's human resources classified by level - field of operation

Unit: person


Expertise Level

Commerce

Hotel

- Restaurant

Travel services

Manage

Add

Proportion

Master



1

2

3

0.4%

University

11

27

55

58

151

19.7%

College



4

3

7

0.9%

Intermediate

4

12

10

15

41

5.3%

Below intermediate

19

472

64

10

565

73.7%

Total

34

511

134

88

767

100%

(Source: Ben Thanh DVDL Company)

In terms of professional qualifications, the number of employees with university degrees or higher accounts for 20.1% of the total number of employees in the whole company, of which 68% of managers have university degrees and above, 13.8% of employees with university degrees or higher are concentrated in the tourism service sector accounting for 8.2%, hotels - restaurants accounting for 4%, and commerce accounting for 1.6%.

The company's leadership team has many years of experience, trained through practice combined with training and fostering to improve management skills. However, there is still a lack of managers at the level of development requirements.

The direct service staff such as security guards, kitchen staff, waiters, room service staff, etc. have mostly been professionally trained. Those who directly contact customers such as tour guides, receptionists, etc. mostly know a foreign language at level B or higher. However, the number of workers who know two or more foreign languages ​​is still small and the majority of workers know common foreign languages ​​such as English and French, while the number of people who know other foreign languages ​​such as German, Korean, etc. is very small, thus making it difficult to research and expand the international travel market.

2.2.1.2 Loan

As of December 31, 2004, the total capital of the company was: 262,884,745,000 VND, however, this capital is mainly potential because up to 62% of the capital is from the State capital allocated in the form of land use rights (163 billion) for joint ventures with foreign countries, but currently due to objective circumstances, the joint venture projects have not been implemented, so this land allocation capital has not been effective. Therefore, the capital for the company's business needs is still limited, affecting the company's competitiveness and investment in expanding its business network.


Table 2.3: Size, asset structure and capital of the company as of December 31, 2004

Unit price: 1,000 VND

ASSET

VALUE

SOURCE OF FUNDING

VALUE

A. Current assets and short-term investments

53,279,277

A. Liabilities

72,000,205

1. Money

3,567,841

1. Short-term debt

52,020,644

2. Short-term financial investment


2. Long-term debt

18,044,017

3. Accounts receivable

18,293,188

3. Other debts

1,935,544

4. Inventory

28,704,698



5. Other current assets

2,713,548



B. Fixed assets and long-term investments

209,605,467

B. Equity capital

190,884,539

1. TSCÑ

17,953,073

1. Business Capital & Fund

189.888.866

2. Long-term financial investment

174.175.489

2. Other funding sources and funds

995,673

3. Long-term deposits and bets

575,287



4. Long-term prepaid expenses

1,576,727



Total assets

262,884,745

Total capital

262,884,745

(Source: Financial report of Ben Thanh Service Company)

2.2.1.3 Facilities

The company currently manages 35 premises, of which 27 premises were transferred fixed assets by the City People's Committee, 3 premises were purchased by the company itself, 1 was rented from the City's housing management company, 2 were rented from the District 1 housing management company, 2 were assigned by the state to form joint ventures with foreign partners. All of the above premises are located in District 1, right in the city center, with extremely favorable locations for business, this is a huge advantage compared to competitors. In addition, the company also rents a number of other premises outside District 1 for business and network development, including:


- Transaction office system:

9

- Hotel system:

3 (154 rooms)

- Restaurant - discotheque - karaoke system:

14

- System of stores and shopping centers:

10

- Warehouse system:

4

Despite the advantage of location, most of the company's premises are quite small in scale, with inadequate and outdated facilities and equipment, unable to meet development requirements.

Regarding transportation, the company is equipped with 14 vehicles, of which 5 vehicles (1 15-seat vehicle, 2 6-seat vehicles, 2 4-seat vehicles) are used for daily business trips, the remaining fleet consists of 9 vehicles.


to transport tourists including 4 45-seat cars, 1 30-seat car, 2 25-seat cars, 2 16-seat cars. This fleet of cars has not actually met the demand for transporting tourists. One of the investments in the tourism sector is investing in tourist transport vehicles. In the past, the unit's transport vehicles were still lacking and old, and needed to be strengthened and renewed.

2.2.1.4 Brand reputation

In the context of increasingly deep international and regional economic integration, fierce competition and more and more foreign products, goods and services entering the Vietnamese market have forced businesses to create their own brand in the market. Famous brands not only have great competitiveness in the market but also have other comparative advantages such as being easily accepted by customers, not spending much time and money on promotion... The reputation of the brand has a direct impact on customers when choosing travel programs or services when deciding to buy. In addition, the difference between branded products and unbranded products has made the price of each product of the same type but different brands higher. The benefits of branded businesses are often clearly shown in the price of products and services provided to customers. This really brings advantages to businesses because in the same business process, reputable businesses often bring much higher economic efficiency.

Realizing the importance of brand as a tool and competitive weapon, the company always focuses on building and strengthening the brand. With the motto "customer is king - service quality above profit", over the years the company has achieved very positive business results and become a reliable address for many tourists and international partners. Ben Thanh tourism brand is now known by many domestic and foreign tourists as one of the leading travel agencies in Vietnam, achieving the Topten title for 6 consecutive years (1999-2004) and 3 consecutive years achieving the title of "domestic travel agency with satisfaction" voted by consumers by Saigon Marketing Newspaper. These achievements are due to the efforts to rise up and strive continuously for many years by the company's Board of Directors together with the staff. Therefore, it must be affirmed that Ben Thanh Tourism brand is a prestigious brand, with the strength that many other units in the tourism industry aspire to achieve. Because of this advantage, the ability to compete and attract tourists to Ben Thanh tourism is increasing, economic organizations all want to cooperate with the company to do business and show off their reputation.

2.2.2 Business situation

2.2.2.1 About the product

Unlike other products, tourism products sold to customers are tourism programs, which are mainly a combination of natural resources.


However, human resources along with customer service facilities such as transportation, food, accommodation, ... and service attitude. Thus, the nature of tourism is not the purchase and sale of normal consumer products but the purchase of "spiritual goods". Therefore, to improve competitiveness, businesses must build unique, attractive, quality tourism products that meet the needs of tourists and have their own features compared to other businesses to have a competitive advantage in the tourism market.

Realizing that importance, the company constantly improves the quality and diversifies tourism products, meeting the increasingly diverse and rich needs of tourists as well as constantly researching, creating, and building new and unique products to create its own competitive advantage.

In the field of international tourism, in addition to pure tourism and resort, the company has built its own unique features - the cross-Vietnam tour program (trekking) with increasingly improved tour quality has attracted a significant number of international visitors. In addition, there are specialized tours to learn about culture and ethnicity, tours for veterans to visit old battlefields, bicycle tours, hunting tours, etc.

In the field of domestic tourism, the tour programs built by the company are flexible and can be changed according to the requirements of each customer group such as picnic programs, campfire activities for students, summer travel programs for teachers, vacation programs for employees, weekend travel programs... The company also searches for and opens new tour products such as going to the forest and down to the sea, discovering new emotions, visiting ecological areas... unique and suitable for new trends.

In particular, grasping the potential and development trend of MICE tourism, the company quickly moved a tourism office to establish a Conference and Event Center to exploit this potential market. This is one of the first tourism centers in the city to exploit the MICE market. Although newly established, the center has successfully organized many large conferences, attracting a significant number of tourists.

2.2.2.2 About the market

Asian international tourist market

The company's key customer markets are the Netherlands, Japan, Germany, France, and the United States. The company's potential markets are China, ASEAN, Korea, and Russia. Up to now, the company has established relationships with 38 companies from 23 countries around the world.

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