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Methods of Conducting Research on Internet Marketing Applications in Vietnamese Tourism Businesses


Synthesize content from secondary data sources


Preliminary research




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Methods of Conducting Research on Internet Marketing Applications in Vietnamese Tourism Businesses

Qualitative research:

IN-DEPTH INTERVIEW

- Build interview content

- Identify interview subjects

- Conduct interviews

- Remove the tape and analyze the results


RESEARCH DETERMINATION


RESEARCH DETERMINATION

QUALITY OF SURVEY


SURVEY QUANTITY

CLOSE TO CUSTOMERS

- Model building

Quantitative research

BUSINESS

- Construction and completion

research and development


quantitative survey

Questionnaire


business

- Determine scale and structure


- Determine scale and structure

sample and approach


sample and approach

- Conduct survey


- Conduct survey

- Conduct data entry and processing


- Conduct data entry and processing





Data processing and analysis

Figure 1.2: Method of conducting research on internet marketing application in Vietnamese tourism businesses

To have more information to study the IM application in Vietnamese tourism enterprises and some issues that need to be raised with IM application for Vietnamese tourism enterprises as the research topic, the researcher collected primary data through two methods: expert interview method and questionnaire survey method (business survey and customer survey). The specific steps are as follows:

Step 1: Synthesize and analyze secondary data sources

From the secondary data searched according to the steps presented in section 4.1, the researcher forms an overview of how Vietnamese enterprises are


understanding and application of IM, as well as the conditions of facilities and tools used for the application of IM of Vietnamese enterprises in general. From these results, it is the foundation for designing the contents of the preliminary research session.

Step 2: Preliminary research

The researcher conducted preliminary research using the group discussion method: The focus group was established with 4 people including: 2 experts in the field of marketing and tourism and 2 individuals who are leaders/managers or the highest decision makers for marketing activities of enterprises.

During the discussion, the researcher presented the purpose and content of the discussion. The discussion then included discussions on issues related to IM in tourism enterprises in general and IM applications in Vietnamese tourism enterprises in particular. The group discussion helped the researcher outline the content of the questions that the topic needed to interview and survey.

Step 3: Design and conduct qualitative research

After having an overview of the IM application situation of Vietnamese tourism enterprises in general, the researcher designed and conducted qualitative research to learn about the views and understanding of experts on IM application in tourism enterprises in Vietnam.

- Build interview content:

The method used by the researcher is direct, in-depth, semi-structured personal interviews, based on the interview guide. Based on the theoretical content of IM that has been studied and the results of secondary data analysis on the current state of business operations and the current state of IM application in Vietnamese tourism enterprises, the researcher built an interview outline with questions focusing on the following three main contents: (see Appendix 1A).

+ Collect general information about businesses and application conditions, processes, and online marketing-mix tools being deployed at Vietnamese tourism businesses.

+ Consult with business experts on the content of the survey questions to be used in the large-scale enterprise survey. From there, build a draft of the DNDLVN survey form.

+ Consult to complete the scales in the customer survey (The table of initial observation variables is shown in Appendix 1B. This content will be presented in more detail in the customer quantitative survey section).


- Identify interview subjects:

The researcher interviewed 07 experts in the field of travel and accommodation business. Specifically:

+ 03 leaders at Vietnamese tourism enterprises, who have a clear understanding of information or have important influence on the organization and implementation of IM applications in tourism business activities. Interviewing this group helps to explore and discover the hidden awareness and attitude of leaders about IM. Because the leader's awareness of a business tool will determine how the leader will behave towards it, how much he will invest and care about it, and how he will direct its implementation. This is especially true for Vietnamese tourism enterprises - where the scale of the enterprise is usually small and medium in the range of a few dozen to a few hundred employees, and the decisions of the leaders often have a direct direction to the specific activities of the implementing staff.

+ 04 scientists from universities that teach tourism: After obtaining information from leaders, the researchers drafted a business survey and adjusted the questionnaire for businesses based on the scientists' opinions.

- Conducting interviews: Interviews were conducted in October and November 2019 through both face-to-face interviews, phone interviews and interviews via social networking tools such as messenger and zalo.

Direct interviews help researchers to directly approach and closely observe the reactions of the subjects to understand more deeply and closely what is behind their answers, and at the same time, they can flexibly adjust the interview structure according to each case of the interviewee. Then, during the processing, if problems arise, the researcher will collect more information via phone, messenger and zalo.

- Transcribe and analyze interview results:

With the data obtained from the qualitative research method (personal interviews with business leaders), the researcher transcribed the interview tapes along with the interview content notes. Then, the results were processed using basic techniques of qualitative data processing, such as: synthesizing the opinions that appeared; counting the frequency of important words that were repeated many times; searching, analyzing, linking... with the support of MS Excel text software. At the same time, qualitative research also helped the researcher understand the cognitive mechanism of thinking and


The decision-making style of Vietnamese SMEs on issues related to IM. This understanding was used to design a survey form that is consistent with the logic, thinking and vocabulary that Vietnamese SMEs use when talking about IM. The form was then adjusted based on the comments of experts. From the results of this qualitative research, the researcher will apply the hypothesis/assumption method to predict the nature of the subject and seek to prove those predictions through a large-scale survey.

For opinions on the scale in the customer survey, the researcher combined with opinions of other experts to calibrate the scale related to online marketing-mix tools affecting customers' purchase intentions to conduct an official survey.

Step 4: Design and conduct quantitative research

(1) Quantitative research through business surveys:

Quantitative research is conducted with the aim of verifying the research hypotheses that have been formed and collecting additional information. The necessary information that needs to be collected is: Does the enterprise apply IM in its business activities and to find out the level of IM application of the enterprise if any; the application process as well as IM tools in business activities. Quantitative research through enterprise surveys is carried out according to the following steps:

- Build and complete the business quantitative survey form :

After completing the first draft, the survey form was sent to conduct pilot interviews at 5 travel and hotel companies. The problems and shortcomings of the first draft were pointed out by the companies and the researcher edited and completed this draft to conduct the official survey.

The revised questionnaire consists of 2 parts with 27 questions (see appendix).

1) specifically as follows:

Part I: Includes 10 multiple choice questions related to general information about the business such as business name, address, business field, business type, internet connection type, number of computers, internet connection type in the business, number of employees, number of years in business and customer market of the business.

Part II: Includes 18 major questions divided into three parts: Part one has content related to the general understanding and activities of the business about


internet marketing. The second part is related to the process and methods of conducting internet marketing that the business is implementing. The third part explores the market research tools, target marketing along with marketing - mix tools in the business's internet marketing activities. Most of the questions are designed in the form of closed questions with many available options for respondents to choose which option is correct or closest to the description of their business's actual operations. Only a few questions will aim to measure/evaluate the qualitative aspects of the subject and questions assessing the level of reference to information sources when making IM decisions of the business, the importance of reference information sources for customers, ... are designed in the form of closed questions listing options and using a distance measurement scale (Likert scale).

- Determine sample size, structure and approach:

The research population is travel businesses in Vietnam (according to the 2019 Vietnam Tourism Annual Report, as of the end of December 2019, the number of international travel businesses is 2,667, domestic travel businesses is more than 500), accommodation service businesses (according to data from the General Statistics Office, as of the end of December 2019, the number of accommodation service businesses in Hanoi is 6,408, Da Nang is 984 and Ho Chi Minh City is 4,567) regardless of the type of business, size or market of the business. Thus, there are about 15,126 businesses gathered in the overall research scale (N). The sample calculation formula used (Kothari, CR, 2004) is:

Source: Kothari (2004)

In which: z is the reliability coefficient. With the desire for the survey reliability to reach 95%, z is 1.96. The squared sigma (∂ 2 ) is the variance (square of the standard deviation). For studies using a 5-level Likert interval scale, the standard deviation usually ranges from 1.2 to 2.0. x) is the sampling error in the measurement of the average estimate. With a 5-level interval scale, the desire is to estimate from the sample to the population without bias by 5%, equivalent to x = 0.25. From there, the minimum number of sample units needed to be achieved ranges from 73 to 122 elements.


The sampling frame was drawn from the list of travel agencies and accommodation establishments in the Vietnam Yellow Pages. The focus was on travel agencies and accommodation establishments in Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City - the localities with high concentrations of travel agencies and accommodation establishments in the three regions of the North, Central and South.

The convenience sampling method was used to select the enterprises to conduct the survey to ensure the highest response rate and to be consistent with the time and budget constraints of the survey. The researcher sent out paper and online questionnaires and collected 168 questionnaires, of which 115 were filtered as valid (accounting for 68.45%).

- Conduct survey :

The survey of enterprises was conducted in two phases as follows:

+ Phase 1: From December 2019 - January 2020.

For Vietnamese tourism enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang : Send by post or email to the enterprises at the address in the list of Vietnamese tourism enterprises in the form. The person who is sent the survey form is the person in charge of marketing activities of the enterprise. Before sending the form, the researcher contacts the enterprises in the form to request the enterprise to cooperate. After the form is sent, the researcher calls the enterprise to make sure that the enterprise has received the survey form.

For Vietnamese tourism enterprises in Hanoi: Through interns/former students working at the enterprise, send the questionnaire directly to the interns/via express delivery to the people in charge of marketing activities of the enterprise to conduct the survey.

+ Phase 2: From February 2020 to March 2020. During this phase, due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic, the researcher converted the survey form to an online form using Google Forms, sending the form link (https://forms.gle/r8DYxf8DgHNRbrKo9) to businesses that are partners of the Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism, University of Commerce to continue the survey. Through personal relationships, send the form link to groups whose members are leaders of travel companies and accommodation establishments for survey.

The business survey was conducted between December 2019 and March 2020.


- Conduct data entry and processing:

After collecting the answer sheets, the researcher reviews them to see if they meet the requirements and eliminates low-value answers. Answer sheets are discarded if a large number of important questions are not answered or if there are signs that the respondent did not answer the questions seriously (e.g., the respondent selected only one answer for a series of different questions).

The valid responses were retained and coded, entered into the computer (for paper forms) and exported from google forms to excel for online forms, then processed with appropriate statistical algorithms to support the data analysis process. With the information drawn from the research, the researcher applied the method of analysis and summary of experience, specifically using theory to review the data collected on the practical operations of enterprises to draw conclusions.

(2) Quantitative research through customer surveys:

According to the marketing principle, starting from the needs and desires of the tourist destination, the Vietnamese tourism enterprise must find ways to meet those needs and desires to bring a high level of satisfaction to the tourist destination. All marketing activities are aimed at the tourist destination and understanding the behavior of the tourist destination is an important issue that the tourist destination in general and the Vietnamese tourism enterprise in particular need to pay close attention to. On the other hand, due to the rapid development of technology and changes in consumer trends, in many cases, the Vietnamese tourism enterprise will have to guide and orient the tourist destination to know, understand and change the behavior of the tourist destination. Therefore, it is necessary to have evaluation, comments and feedback from the tourist destination about the marketing activities of the enterprise. The researcher conducts a quantitative study of the tourist destination to obtain results on the evaluation of the tourist destination about the online marketing-mix tools that affect the intention to buy travel/accommodation services of customers. From there, compare with the actual implementation of online marketing-mix tools of Vietnamese tourism enterprises, consider the level of conformity between the actual implementation and the needs, desires or feelings, and assessments from customers to make adjustments. The specific steps when conducting quantitative research through customer surveys are as follows:

- Build research model and complete questionnaire

Based on an overview of research works and theoretical research on marketing-mix tools (presented specifically in section 2.2.3), the online marketing-mix model applied by the researcher includes 8Ps: product, price,


distribution, promotion, people, product packaging, programming, partnership (Alastair M.Morrison, 1998). However, within the scope of the thesis, the thesis focuses on studying the application of IM in Vietnamese tourism enterprises targeting customers. Therefore, the partnership variable is not considered in the research model. The original model includes 7P: product, price, distribution, promotion, people, product packaging and programming. In addition, it is recognized that the product packaging is a method of offering or marketing two or more products/services in a product package at a price that the buyer perceives as lower than when buying each product separately. It can be considered a large "overall product". Programming also supports the creation of that large overall product, the researcher proposes to combine the variables of product packaging and programming with the product policy variable . The model proposed for conducting in-depth interviews includes 5P: product, price, distribution, promotion and people. The researcher conducted in-depth interviews with experts to complete the research model and evaluate the observed variables in the research model. The initial preliminary observed variables proposed by the researcher for discussion are shown in the appendix ( see appendix 1B ). Interview time October, November 2019.

Implementation method : The researcher interviewed 10 subjects: 4 scientists who are lecturers in marketing and tourism with a doctorate degree or higher, and 10 years of teaching experience or more; 03 business leaders who are knowledgeable about or have important influence on the organization and implementation of IM applications in business activities of enterprises (those interviewed for the business survey); 03 KDLs who are knowledgeable about how to search and book tours/hotel rooms online. The interviews were conducted directly or by phone. The interview content included the following questions:

(1). Do you agree with these online marketing-mix tools? Why?

(2) Do you think it is necessary to add or edit any words or tools in the online marketing mix? Why?

(3). Do you agree with the observed variables in the online marketing-mix tools? Why?

(4) Do you think it is necessary to add or edit any observation variables in online marketing - mix tools? Why?

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