developing, using and analyzing the results of interviews to determine the feelings of foreign tourists on their visit to viet nam

HANOI OPEN UNIVERSTTY
FACULTY OF TOURISM



PROJECT HD2

DEVELOPING, USING AND ANALYZING THE RESULTS
OF INTERVIEWS TO DETERMINE THE FEELINGS OF
FOREIGN TOURISTS ON THEIR VISIT TO VIET NAM

Students

: NGUYEN THI HONG NAM
NGUYEN THI THU HIEN

Class

: BK13

Group

: 2

HA NOI - 2008


TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS......................................................................2

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I/ INTRODUCTION
Through many last assignments, we had many big chances to be
acquainted with doing in-group, working with many various topics, which
required an ability of working, of researching, etc...
With this HD2 project, we also get more chances to work in-group, but
in this topic, we get a new way to do this assignment. It brings us a chance to
communicate with foreigners, to interview and from that; we can learn
something different from last assignments. Because of the purpose of the
assignment, is that encouraging students to meet and talk with foreigners,
obtaining information by designing, asking questions and analyzing their
results in a short report? So that, it is very interesting with the student because
it helps student to developing higher skills and abilities, which are different
from, last projects.
Writing this report, we hope that we can bring something new to the
teacher and the students in faculty of tourism. We summarized our an
interview by this report, and we want to supply some present information’s
about foreign tourists, about what they are thinking about Vietnam tourism,
what they hope and what they see? Then, teachers and students may know
clearly about the fact of tourism in Vietnam. It will help students have the
right acknowledge about tourism in our country. Especially, doing this report,
students can learn many things in analyzing chart, which is very helpful for
the future.
In order to do this job, we shared the work equally by two members in
our groups:

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Nguyen Thi Thu Hien:
•

Introduction

•

Interview Question

•

First half of the result part: from background to the sources of
information and how useful/accurate it was.
Nguyen Thi Hong Nam:

•

Second part of the result: From accommodation facilities to
extra comments.

•

Discussion

•

Recommendations

•

Edit and print

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II/ INTERVIEW QUESTIONS
According to the purpose of the report, we had to go out to carry out our
interview with the foreigner tourists. We had to spend two days in the OldQuarter to do it. Before carrying this interview, we intended to choose some
destinations around Hanoi where have many tourists. Moreover, in our mind,
we thought it was so easy to get information. Nevertheless, after interviewing,
we recognized that it did not look like our imagination.
On the first day, we wandered around Restored Sword Lake to find the
tourists. We approached some tourists who sat on the bench. We did it
without difficulties. We saw them with a friendly way, very natural way, and
very welcomed. However, some of them stared us, looked us in unfriendly
way and did not want to bother anymore. Because they have only come to
Hanoi for one day and Hanoi was the first places in their visit. Moreover,
some of tourists are come from French, so, we got many difficulties in
communicating with these tourists. Suddenly, we felt very disappointed and
did not want to go at all. And we continued finding other guests, but not much
tourist, so we could interview one to two travelers. Most of them seemed too
closed, to be friendly and warmhearted, and welcome us. They told us
everything they did in Vietnam and they thought about Vietnam in their
travels. Therefore, they helped us in getting information for our interview.
But, in generally, we had not completed 12 sheets Questionnaires yet. Nam
and I were very tired at that time. We sat each other, discussed and gave the
last decision.
On the second day, we found a Beer road site inn (Bia hoi) in Ta Hien
street. It is the place where have many tourist drinking beer there, very
famous street with tourist.

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We ordered a bottle of orange juice, drank and wait for a chance to
access tourists. And we got it. Most of tourists here were very cheerful, very
humor and very easy to get an open talk with them. Besides that, they also
asked them for some visiting places in Hanoi, where they have to go and to
see.

And, for only one hour, we finished our interview with a lot of

information not only in the project but also in the outside. We were very
happy.

III/ RESULTS
Our questionnaire designed an interview of 25 questions and divided into
10 main topics:
1. Background
2. Reason for travel
3. Tourist sites visited or intending to visit
4. Tourist services used
5. Sources of information and how useful it was
6. Accommodation facilities
7. Quality of food
8. Transportation
9. Shopping, entertainment
10. Extra comments

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Hereafter is the questionnaire that we designed:

QUESTIONAIRE
Name:………………………………….. Nationality:
…………………………….

Age:

Young

Sex:

Male /Female

Kind of travel:

Middle age

Independent

Group

Older

Business

1. How many times have you visited Vietnam?
2. Why did you choose Viet Nam for your travel?

3. Have you visited some famous destinations and world heritages in
Vietnam?
4. Which is the destination in Vietnam you like the most? And Why?
5. What kind of tourist service have you used in Vietnam?
6. What is your opinion about the services you has used in Vietnam?
7. The quality of tour guide in Vietnam is:
8. Your search information about Vietnam by:
9. Do you often use a system of tourism information when you travel
in Vietnam?
10.Is it easy for you to approach the tourism information center? Give
me your trouble if no?
11.Do you often get brochure from the destination you come?
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12.What is your comment about the quality of brochure?
13.What kind of accommodations you staying in Hanoi?
14.What did you think about the accommodation that you stayed in
Hanoi?
15.Have you ever tasted some traditional foods in Vietnam?
16.If yes, where did you try it?
17.How do you feel about traditional food in Vietnam?
18.What is Vietnamese food you like most?
19.What is your appreciation about transportation system in Vietnam?
20.Have you ever gone shopping in Vietnam or Hanoi?
21.Where is the place you often go for shopping?
22.Did you find suitable places for your entertainment in Hanoi? If
no, do you have any suggestion for Hanoi?
23.What are your impressions of Hanoi?
24.Did your visit to Hanoi meet your expectations?

25.Will you return to Hanoi for a second visit?

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1. Background
a. Chart of Nationality

This pie chart shows us the Nationality of the tourist coming to Vietnam
at this time, and divided into three occupations: tourists from European,
Oceanian and North American. In general, the greatest number of tourist who
coming to Vietnam recently is North American tourists with 42%. There are
smaller percentages of European and Oceanian tourists. They occupy 33%
and 25%. It is not difficult to explain for this result. As you can see, there is a
vacation for the Western countries at this time. Therefore, they spend more
time and money for travelling, and for relaxing in some Southern Eastern
Asian countries: Thailand, Singapore, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. And the
reason why the north American tourists come to Vietnam much more than
before? Because, at this time, there is a presidential racing in America, and
one of them is John Mc. Cain, who was an Airman in Vietnam War, who
drove B52 airplane for American army. Many documents, which talked about
him, kept in Hoalo prison. Therefore, it is the reason why many tourists from
North American country come to Vietnam at this time.

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b. Estimate age of tourist
Estimate age of tourist
70%

60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%

58%
Young age
Middle age
Old age

33%
9%
Young age

Middle age

Old age

This column shows the estimate age of the tourist. As it is shown in chart
2, middle age people have the highest percentage, occupy 58,5%. The
percentage of young tourists is slightly smaller than the percentage of middle
age tourists. It means that at that time, the tourist at the age of the middle in
some western countries have more free time, we can find many middle age
tourist in everywhere. They travel with family, with friends and groups. But
different from the young age, the tendency of middle age tourists is that they
only buy a tour with package services, and enjoy the most famous places,
don’t want to have experienced like a real backpacker. The old age occupy

only 9%. It shows us that at this time, when the young and middle age people
go to travel, they stay at home to keep the house for their children, or travel
not much. This kind of tourist wants to have a culture tour, have a rest.
Therefore, not many tourists stay in Hanoi now.

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c. Kind of travel

This chart shows that kind of travel. We divided into three main parts:
Independent traveler, Group, and business. It can be seen that the percentage
of independent tourist is the biggest. It occupies 58% in total. The numbers of
tourists who travel in-group hold 33%. And the business tourist market is less,
9%. Seeing the result, we can show that, nowadays, more and more tourists
like this kind of travel very much. There are many reasons to explain for the
result that why they choose travelling alone.
Some of independent travelers are students, they travel alone to get the
real experienced, because they have not much money, and are called
backpackers.
Others independent tourists were interviewed said that: they travel alone
because they want to discover by themselves, although they have much
money to buy package tours.
The tendency of travelling alone becomes popular in Vietnam. However,
as you know, they are not the potential customer of Vietnam tourism. So, we
think that Vietnam tourism should have more strategies to attractive higher
tourist market.

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2. Reason for travel

This chart presents the reason for travel. As it is shown in the chart, the
percentage of reason for beauty and others reason are equal, occupy 42% in
total. And the number of tourist choose Vietnam for cheap and strange have
the same pecentage: 8%. In brief, most of the tourist says that Vietnam is very
beautiful and famous with many landscapes, traditional food.... Most of the
tourist said that they love Halong Bay with natural beauty, love Hoian, Hue
with its ancient traditional culture, love Hochiminh city with busy city,
shopping there is very interesting, and especially, Hanoi is very peaceful for
them to relax, to see water puppet, very exciting. Therefore, it is easy to see
this result. Others reasons why tourist choose Vietnam are: they have many
Vietnamese friends live in their countries, and they introduced to visit here, or
some others choose Vietnam because they want to visit some world heritages
in Vietnam.

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3. Tourist sites or intending to visit

This chart shows us the tourist sites which tourist chooses to visit in
Vietnam and intend to visit.
We gathered the popular destinations with tourists into three areas:
Southern, Northern and Middle of Vietnam.
The result shows that most of the tourists like northern of Vietnam with

50%. According to our interview, we asked question about the reason why
you like northern of Vietnam, most of them told us that because they fond of
Halong bay, they love Tamcoc, love Hanoi, and many thing in Hanoi. Hanoi
is so quite different from Hochiminh city.
33 percent are belonging to Southern of Vietnam, with some famous
places like Hochiminh city, with Nhatrang, Mui ne (Phanthiet city). They love
beaches there.
Only 28% tourist chooses middle of Vietnam. Most of the tourists who
said that they like Vietnam because of some reasons here: Hue people are
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very friendly and closely, foods bring traditional cuisine, very wonderful, they
know well about Spring roll in Hue, but we wondered that spring roll in
Hanoi is also very delicious, why tourist can remember deeply in their mind
about this food.
Generally, the result shows that destinations are disposed equally in
three areas of Vietnam. And it helps tourists get know well about Vietnam,
get more different feeling about Vietnam by many different traditional
cultures.

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4. Appreciations of quality of tourist services

There are some small differences in this chart. We did not divide the
tourist services too clearly, but we generally gathered the tourist services to
have a general viewing about services, which tourists used in Vietnam.
As you can see in this chart, the percentage of good services which

tourist felt is 50 percent, quite good is 34 percent. However, they do never
have a real satisfaction about the quality of services they used here. They
complained us about the hotel, guide. It has not good standard. About the
quality of the guide, they also had bad complications: tour guide don’t know
the way with some destinations, tour guide speak so quite, and something not
good... We felt so disappointed.
A small amounts of tourist thought that tourist services are so quite bad
and fair, occupy 8%.
Some of them complained about transportation in Hanoi, very funny,
very crazy and have no rule. Especially, when they drank beer hoi in the
sidewalk, some of polices drove a car, and the boss of the inn shouted at them
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to sit at the back to avoided...Very funny, and street vendors are also
persistent too, they earn money by treat the tourist with a higher prices. Some
tourists know about it but others did not know they easily give money to the
street vendor by his funny stories: “buy for me, if you buy, you will be very
lucky”... and many crazy things.
On the whole, the chart shows that percentage of good quality is much
higher than quite good. Now, tourism in Vietnam has not enough good
professional marketing strategy, and lack of services. It will lead the tourist
feel so boring and do not want to come back again.

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5. Source of information and how useful it was
a. Source of information

The chart presents the source of information tourist use and find before
coming to Vietnam. Seeing this chart, we can recognize that most of the
tourist find information from internet and book (lonely planet), occupy 50%.It
means that, nowadays, internet is very useful method for tourist who want to
travel in everywhere. They can get enough information for them without
losing a lot of time or money. Then, when they are travelling, they use lonely
planet book as a pocket dictionary. They easily find many things from this
book. Most of tourists use a map and a lonely planet book. The others result
shows us that introducing by friend are so popular, with 42%. This kind of
advertising is also very good and interesting for the tourist, because they will
get more experienced to avoided something, and to know what they can do
and don’t in Vietnam. No one choose Tour Company for finding information.
It is very easy to understand because they are afraid of quality of the
company.
Altogether, almost tourists choose internet for finding information about
Vietnam.

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b.Brochure and tourism information center:
According to our result, most of the tourist said no when I asked them
about tourism information center, do they often use it to find information.
And the result is 75%. Although they told us that the information centers are
very easy to approach, they said that they had a guidebook, so, it’s enough for
them, many information in this book.
25% tourist said yes because they want to get more exactly information
and sometime them lost way...
And about quality of brochure, a tourist who comes from Australia said
to me: “I have visited Vietnam for 3 times, and I love it. But I have never got

any brochure because it has a lot of English mistakes, very funny, that
sometime I can’t know...And the color of the brochure is not fine. So, I don’t
like it very much”
58% tourists considered that brochures have not enough information for
them.
In general, this chart shows that the quality of brochure is not good, and
it needs to be changed to get more attractiveness from tourists.

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6. Accommodation facilities
The quality of accommodation facilities.

The pie charts show the quality of accommodation facilities in Hanoi in
four board categories: excellent, good, fair and bad.
As can be seen from the chart that almost tourists evaluated the quality
of accommodation facilities in Hanoi are good, it occupies 67% in total. The
percentage of excellent facilities holds 17%. And the percentage of fair and
bad facilities are same: 8%. Seeing the result, we can find that facilities in
Hanoi get better and better, we satisfied tourist’s demand. Base on our
research, tourists only use 2 kinds of accommodation are hotel: 67% and
guesthouse: 33%, tourists told that facilities in there rather good, enough
necessary equipments, clean, fair comfortable. Specially, with tourists who
can afford to stay at 4, 5 star hotel, they totally agree: excellent facilities.
However, we also received some comments, almost hotels and
guesthouses are good but some of them are not. They use marketing strategy
in unfriendly way seem to be persistent. Therefore, it created the bad image in
the tourist’s mind. Especially, follow Miss. Kim from Australia: “room’s
price is unreasonable”, the price not match with the quality of room.

In conclusion, we can say that the quality of accommodation in Hanoi
quite good and continue expand the excellent quality.

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7. Quality of food.
a. The places where tourists tasted Vietnamese foods

The pie chart presents the places where tourist tasted traditional foods in
Vietnam.
All tourists said “yes” when asked: “Have you ever tasted some
traditional foods in Vietnam?” According to the pie chart that there is not a
great deal of difference between the percentage of tourist tasted in restaurant
(42%) and tourist tasted in street vendor (33%). In short, Western tourists
usually take a meal in restaurant, their habit. On the other hand, nearly all
tourists in Vietnam are independent tourist so they really want to explore the
real Vietnamese life. The best way is tasted some foods in street vender like
Vietnamese, cheaper and more enjoyable.
17 percent tasted Vietnam foods in a tour; almost they follow a group,
everything order so they have no time and chances tasted Vietnam foods
outside. In addition, the percentage of tourist chose others place is very small,
only 8%, they have Vietnamese’s friends so they have a chances take a meal
with Vietnamese family.

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Finally, it can be said that sometime street vendors have a not good
attitude with tourists and hard to control them but if we see in other side,

street vendor’s still special form of Hanoi in particular and Vietnam in
general.
b.Vietnamese food that like most

The pie chart shows us what Vietnamese food tourist like most is. We
know that Hanoi have many traditional foods but we only chose 3 specific
dishes are spring roll, pho and fish-cake.
Almost tourists feel of traditional food in Vietnam are delicious (67%)
and good (41%), they reckon Vietnam’s foods is very attractive, harmonious
taste and nice.
It can be seen from the chart that the greater percentages of tourist like
Pho (44%) than spring roll (34%). In brief, this point easy to understand
because we have a professional Pho’s restaurant system like: Pho 24hour,
Pho Vuong…so tourist without difficulty to find out a Pho’s restaurant and
enjoy. Meanwhile spring roll only serves in Vietnamese restaurants, although
it also well known and special. Moreover, we may eat Pho in breakfast, lunch
or dinner but spring roll is not.

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The percentage of tourist like grilled chopped fish and others are equal
(11percent). Following Mr. Lebar (French): he likes chicken, beef and
Vietnamese rice…
Altogether, we can say that Vietnamese foods totally subduing tourists
and bring pleasant for them.

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8. Transportations

The pie chart presents the appreciation about transportation system in
Vietnam, divided into 4 parts: good, so-so, bad and terrible.
According to chart, that we realized the percentage of good system equal
terrible system: occupy 17% . Fair system has the highest percentage: occupy
41% and the percentage of bad system: 25%.
Transportation system is a big problem in Vietnam and getting worse
and worse. Nearly all tourists steady complaint about this problem. Ash James
from USA said: “Vietnam is a peaceful country but transports, traffic are
heavy dangerous, very crazy because a lot of motorbike, no rule”
We know that transportation system is the element most closely
concerned with tourism. If we still keep on run-down condition, our tourism
business will be fallen down.
On the whole, it can be seen from the chart that 3 segments so-so, bad
and terrible have to solve in the shortest possible time before reaching the
same level of tourism business as countries in area.

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9. Shopping and entertainment
a.Shopping in Hanoi

The pie charts show us the place where tourists shopping in Hanoi, we
divided into 4places: Plaza, market, the Old- quarter and others.
Before finding out about the places for shopping, our team did not forget
asking tourists ever shopping in Hanoi yet. And all of them answer: “yes”,
shopping is indispensable to travel.
As can be seen from the chart that the biggest percentage of the Old

quarter shopping: 37% and afterward is the percentage of market shopping
27%. It is very logical because the Old quarter is leisure, tourist and industrial
centre; a thousand shops have been opened to serve tourism, satisfy tourist’s
demand and they easily combine sightseeing and shopping.
Western tourists are curious about market in Vietnam so that why they
explored market through shopping and have a chance to bargain.
The percentage of shopping plaza and others is same: occupy 18%.
Tourists did not shopping plaza much because:
First, they acquainted with shopping in plaza or tower in their country.
Second, products in plaza are not yet multiform.
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