Improving travel service of Smileviet company

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING UNIVERSITEÙ LIBRE DE BRUXELLES
HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY SOLVAY BUSINESS SCHOOL

MBMM PROGRAM
























MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING UNIVERSITEÙ LIBRE DE BRUXELLES
HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY SOLVAY BUSINESS SCHOOL

MBMM PROGRAM























1
DECLARATION

I declare that the project entitled “Improving Travel Service of Smileviet
Company” is my own work.

The information and data of the project are based on reliable sources.
I hope that my project will be evaluated seriously and approved for applying at
Smileviet Travel Company.












2
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I would like to express my most gratefulness to my tutor Mrs. Nguyen Thi Mai
Trang, who has given me great support and continuous encouragement.
I would also like to express my sincerest thanks to all Professors in Ho Chi Minh
City Open University and the Solvay Business School, ULB, the MBMM program
coordinators for the knowledge, support and advice during the MBMM program.
Additionally, I would like to appreciate all of the MBMM members; it is my great
pleasure and honor to be with you guys in this MBMM program.
Finally, my thanks are extended to Mr. Luu Moc Thuy, Director and founder of
Smileviet Travel Company for his assistance in supplying related and valuable
information to help me complete this study.

May, 2007 Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Luu Moc Khe
3
Tutor comments:

Mr. LUU MOC KHE has proven his capability and willingness to complete the
final project.

Mark: 33/40

This project is qualified to be presented.

26 May 2007
Tutor signed
Nguyen Thi Mai Trang
4
Table of content
DECLARATION 1
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 2
Tutor comments: 3
Table of content 4
Tables 6
EXUCUTIVE SUMMARY 7
INTRODUCTION 9
Scope and limitation 10
Chapter 1: Tourism Situational Analysis 11
1.1 The demand trends 11
1.2 Tourism Favorable regulations 12
1.3 The economic and business conditions 13
1.4 Tourism difficulties 13

1.5 Competitor analysis 15
1.5.1 Saigontourist Travel Service Company 15
1.6 Company analysis 17
1.6.1 Company profile 17
1.6.2 The operation process 18
1.6.3 Smileviet customers 19
1.6.3.1 Smileviet Company target market 21
1.6.4 Company Product 22
1.7 Smileviet Company SWOT 23
Strengths 23
Weaknesses 23
Opportunities 24
Threats 24
Chapter 2: Improving travel service of Smileviet Company 25
2.1 Strengthen the professional of current Tour guide 25
2.1.1 Fortify the tour guide knowledge ground 25
2.1.2 Narrowing the service quality gaps between expectations and
perceptions of tourists
26
2.2 Tour guide recruitment plan 28
2.3 Create company website and deliver the final offer 29
2.3.1 The E-album of the trip 29
5
2.3.2 The company website
30
Conclusion 31
Reference 32
Appendix 1 33
Appendix 2 41

6
Tables


Table1: The arrival figures of tourist from 2001 – 1st quarter of 2007
Table 2: Company tourist information of 2006
Table 3: Company tourist information of 1
st
quarter 2007
Table 4: Estimate cost of implementing website and E-album
7
EXUCUTIVE SUMMARY
Smileviet Company is a travel company targeting in bound tourists. The booming
of Vietnam tourism marketing has created many favorable conditions for the
flourish of Smileviet Company but also attracted a lot of players join in and to
share the market. Gradually, the competitive situation has become stiffer.
Consequently, Smileviet Company has to assess and analyze the current scenario
and accordingly it must alter the traditional way of doing business or will be
crossed out from the market. The Company realizes that tourists have so many
choices and that Smileviet Company has no chance to reach the tourist unless it
positions in the mind of the tourists and differentiates itself from the competitors.
A customer or a tourist select a product or service usually based on the price or
the quality and the benefit brings to the customer or tourist. Hence it presents two
ways for positioning either in price or quality. Positioning by pricing is only
practicable to strong financial players or finally leading to bankruptcy. The proper
way of positioning is that Smileviet Company can pursue is positioning itself as a
high quality travel company.
What Smileviet Company offer is a travel service, an experience and a process.
Tourist can neither touch, nor feel nor try in advance. Besides, travel service also
requires many other supporting elements like: hotel, restaurant, transportations,

sightseeing places and so on. The competitors also exploit those same elements
while providing the service. The difference between Smileviet Company and the
rest is the tour guide and the service professional. While buying a tour, tourist
does not own anything after the payment; he or she only becomes eligible to take
part in the process of the trip in a certain amount of time. When the trip is over,
the tourist only has experience, memory, knowledge and or feelings. Making the
8
tourist actually satisfied wholeheartedly processes a physical item after
accomplishing the trip is another differentiating strategy that Smileviet Company
can apply.
To offer high quality service, Smileviet Company starts from the core of service
which is the role of the tour guide. Duty of the guide is to communicate, to
introduce, and to convey local information and special facts to tourist. Aiming to
that point, Smileviet Company educates its guides team by the latest and most
updated information so that while on duty, the guides can convey to enrich the
tour, tourist joining the tour with a certain level of expectation, but sometimes it
happens that the perception of the tourist is different from his or her initial
expectation result in the evaluation of poor quality from tourist. The guide of
Smileviet Company is trained to manage this gap. Offering high quality services
is also having same meaning of having sufficient man power to satisfy the
increasing demand of market. The back up tour guide work force also helps
company to make a tool that help tourist storing his or her happy moment during
the trip but also an effective advertising tool for company. Currently company
does not have a web site for tourist to search for it information, credibility. A high
quality service providing company not only has a website but the website
existence is to serve its customer.
9
INTRODUCTION
After Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, China, Viet Nam has emerged as a new and
safe travel destination in South East Asian for the global tourists. Catching this

opportunity, Smileviet Travel Company is established with the core to satisfy the
growing demand of foreigners visiting Viet Nam. It acts as a tour operator to
arrange and to provide all kinds of travel related services for the in bound tourists
upon they arrive Vietnam.
Thanks to the modern technology, the tourists have the access to any information
and become professional in making their choice or selecting the travel service
providers even in their home. The potential customers not only know your
company but also find hundreds more of other companies probably providing the
same kind of services. If Smileviet Company wants to survive, not enough, and to
be successful, the company must provide greater customer value and satisfaction
than its competitors. It must find a way to outstanding, positioning itself by
offering better quality and better services according the needs of the customers so
that it becomes the ultimate choice.
Since the travel related identities such as sightseeing sites, hotels, restaurants,
local infrastructure… are fixed assets. All travel companies are exploiting the
same elements. Then what elements can be differentiated? Why should tourists
join Smileviet Company tour programs or services if all the travel companies
offering the same things? The answer lies down on your competitive advantages
or how you introduce those differentiated advantages to the tourists in your own
way, how you serve your tourists in the exclusive way. Smileviet Company is a
travel company; the product it offers is a service, an experience and the process
that requires the participation of the tourists. Therefore, its positioning strategies
10
must also focus on service-oriented and unlike the traditional marketing strategies.
Particularly, where a small number of travel firms that offer nearly identical
services are competing within a small area, establishing a higher service quality
may be the only way of differentiating.
The purpose of this project is to position Smileviet Company as a high quality
travel company by improving the professionalism of current tour guide,
developing future tour guides for company grow and creating website that adds

value to company’s tourists. The project is written in two parts. The first parts are
situational environment of tourism; the second is the positioning strategies that
help to differentiate Smileviet Company.
Scope and limitation
Tourism is a combination of tour programming, hotel, transportation, sightseeing,
restaurant, and tour guiding… that adds together. All those elements have their
own quality standardization and management organizations. Only is the tour guide
managed and provided by the operator company that accompanies and interacts
with the tourists for the whole process. Hence the scope of project will focus on
the service aspect provided by the tour operator only.
Due to Vietnam National Administration of Tourism restriction in publishing
tourism detailed information, and the publishing policy is limited to internal use
and to governmental agencies only. In addition, the tendency of not holding the
responsibility of the information sources causes many difficulties to researcher.
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Chapter 1: Tourism Situational Analysis
1.1 The demand trends
In 1988, Vietnam had only 92,500 international visitors, most of them were those
who come to Vietnam according to political-economic exchange agreements and
overseas Vietnamese coming back to see their family reported by Dr. Vu Tuan
Canh
1
. In the year 2006, according to Vietnam National Administration of
Tourism statistic, the number of international visitor is 3,583,486; rise up 103 % in
compare with 2005. From table 1, it shows that the figure is constantly growing.
According to World Travel and Tourism Council, the nations are expected to
grow travel and tourism demand faster between 2006 and 2015 of which Vietnam
is ranked number seven and the percentage annualized real growth is 7.7%
2
.

Besides, Vietnam is a home of numerous attractions such as ancient architecture,
UNESCO world heritage sites, high mountains, beautiful waterfalls, sunny sea
beaches and a cluster of wonderful places that appeal to tourists worldwide. A
well-known Vietnamese newspaper Touitre cited that The Pacific Asia Travel
Association just conducted a survey of travel intention in Asia for 2007; the
survey has reported that 31% of the interviewees would visit Vietnam in the next
two year
3
. Also in 2006, tourism promotion met many favorable conditions. It
successfully conducted the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation meeting and
successfully negotiated to become an official member of the World Trade
Organization. Another factor contributing to tourism recovery in Vietnam is the
successful organizing of major events such as the SEA Games in late 2003 and
the recent ASEM 5 meeting in Hanoi. These events present opportunities for the
tourism industry to introduce tourism products and promote the image and people
of Vietnam. This can conclude that the demand of international visitors traveling
12
to Vietnam will keep rising in steady speed. This factor promises a perspective
development for travel companies particularly targeting in the in bound tourists.

Table 1: The arrival figures of tourist from 2001 – 1st quarter of 2007
Year 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007/1st Q
Tourist 2330.8 2828.2 2429.6 2927.8 3467.7 3583.4 1462.2
Source: Viet Nam National of Tourism, 2007, unit in thousand.
1.2 Tourism Favorable regulations
According to current Exit and Entry regulation of Immigration Department,
effective from 1
st
Apr 2004, allows Japanese and South Korean travel to Viet
Nam without Visa and from 1

st
May 2005 citizens of Switzerland, Norway,
Denmark, and Poland are allowed to enter Vietnam without visa for fifteen days.
Besides, Viet Nam also signs agreement with Thailand, Philippines, Malaysia,
Singapore, Indonesia and Laos to withdraw the visa requirement for their citizen’s
travel between those nations. This open border policy has created more
convenience to attract regional traveler in Asia as well as high expenditure
tourists from European and it is also one of the strategies to promote tourism
development.
Since May 2006, the Prime Minister has approved the National Action Program of
Tourism in the term 2006-2010 with concrete objectives and implementation
strategies and tactics to make Viet Nam recognized as a strong nation of tourism
development in the Asia region
4
.
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1.3 The economic and business conditions
To impulse the development of tourism, it requires the supporting form several
factors and the most basic ones are infrastructure, accommodation capability and
professional workforce. Currently, the service levels of these basic factors are
poor and insufficient. Infrastructure development relies much on the policies and
strategies on Central Government; fortunately, The State has been clearly aware
of this issue and already takes necessary actions. In the implementation of the
strategy to develop tourism and the national action program on tourism, Vietnam
has invested VND 2,146 billion (USD 133.7 million) for the past five years, in
tourism infrastructure in key destinations and attracted more than 190 foreign
direct investment projects in tourism with a total capital of US $4.64 billion
5
. In
accommodation, The State has applied favorable policies to attract foreign

investments in accommodation projects. Through out the nation hundreds of
foreign investment projects in building hotels, resorts, tourism complex from a
few US million projects to a 500 million USD five-star hotel complex at Hanoi
suburban district by Keangnam group of the Republic of Korea
6
. When those
projects come into service in a few years later, it will open a new page of Viet
Nam tourism industry as well as new business opportunities for travel companies.
1.4 Tourism difficulties
According to Tuoitre newspaper (Dec 2005), in 234.000 direct workforce of the
tourism field, only 60 percent are trained, in the tour guide team, only 5.104 are
holders of tour guiding certificates, the non-certified tour guides are 2.854,
account for 30 percentage of the guiding force
7
. The chairman of Viet Nam
Tourism Association, Mr. Nguyen Phu Duc, replies an interview that the current
labor who directly participate in tourism industry lack of professional skills and
14
knowledge. Some tour guides even do not process a though knowledge of
national cultures, poor in communication skills when using foreign languages
8
.
Most of the tour guides practice in the field must graduate from university and
attend a supplementary tourism training course conducted by an authorized
institution or have a university degree of any foreign language and attend a
tourism language course educated by an authorized institution. However, the tour
guides who are capable of speaking foreign languages other than English,
Chinese Mandarin, and French are so scarce that some travel companies hire
ordinary persons with high payment providing that this person can speak the
required language and the tour guiding skills are totally unmentioned. Therefore

the quality of the guiding service is not guarantee and may cause a bad image in
the tourists.
Another issue is the indifferentiation of sightseeing places in compared with the
countries around Vietnam. Usually, an average length of a European travel trip is
about two to four weeks and it usually across two or three countries as the ticket
price already eat up one third of the whole travel budget. Thailand is famous for
its giant pagodas, Angkor Wat heritage in Cambodia, China is full of historical
monuments everywhere… After visiting the pagodas in Thailand, the tourists will
no longer be interested in seeing the pagodas in Vietnam. Furthermore all tour
products are monotones in general and unattractive to tourists. These issue can
heavily effect the profitability of travel companies as tourists may shorten their
staying in Viet Nam consequently reduce their expenditure opportunities.
Critically, most of the local is not well educated of the proper way to behave with
tourists and actually causing a lot of annoying experiences to tourists. They all
bear in mind that tourists are richer people and they don’t mind to spend a bit
more than ordinary price, so local shop sellers tend to set a much higher price and
15
try to take as much advantages as possible. A more dangerous thinking is that
tourist will not come back to make complain or does not know how to complain so
that they think it is ok to deceive the tourist. Such improper behaviors may cause
annoyance to the tourists and making them never visit Vietnam again. Worse,
those tourists will apply word of mouth effect and making Vietnam a notorious
place.
Despite the fact that Vietnam is facing a lot of difficulties and there are a
numerous of problems need to be solved, Vietnam is still full of potential. The
Government is obviously putting hard effort to improve the tourism environment
and develop. Even though the tourism situations now is less favorable than the
neighbor countries, every travel company should try their best to minimize those
defects and be creative in its service deliveries and provide high quality service
that bring satisfaction to tourists.

1.5 Competitor analysis
There are numerous of travel companies operating in Vietnam. Author selects the
leader of travel company also targeting inbound tourism for deeper study.
1.5.1 Saigontourist Travel Service Company
Saigontourist Travel Service Company established in 1975 and is a division of the
state-run enterprise Saigontourist Holding Company
It has pioneered inbound
travel and has been considered one of the most prestigious and reliable travel
companies in Vietnam. It has been dealing with travel agencies of 36 countries
worldwide. Saigontourist will continue to focus on enhancing and expanding
markets, especially international target markets such as Japan, China, Taiwan,
Singapore, Korea, France, Germany, England, Canada, USA … As an official
member of PATA, ASTA, JATA and USTOA and it has business relations with
16
more than 200 foreign travel companies. In 2006, it served total 164.000 tourists
and the in bound market accounted for 61.000 tourists.
It strongest competitive advantages are the supporting from the mother company
which is managing 08 travel service companies across nation, 56 hotels, 13 resorts
and complexes, and 24 restaurants with well-appointed facilities. These resources
not only allow Saigontourist Travel Service Company better deal with the
shortage of service facilities in peak seasons but also able to pursue pricing
advantage strategies.
It targets three tourism markets: domestic, out bound and in bound with wide
arrangement of tour products. Beside the traditional and classical tours, it also
provides out door and cross country tours by motor bike, Meeting, Incentive,
Conference, and Event (MICE) tour, international yacht racing, and cruising tour
with a five star cruise ship.
Saigontourist Travel Company is also the first company that establishes web
BLOG /> since May 2007 for its customers to express
and share the trip feelings, experiences or anything they want to say about the

trips. However it is limited to outbound or domestic tourists only and the interface
language is Vietnamese language only.
Corresponding to the largest travel company in Viet Nam, Saigontourist Travel
Company has a strong team of tour guide capable of speaking several foreign
languages including English, French, Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese, Thai,
Italian, Russian and Germany. All tour guides must be university graduated and
company will conduct training courses to update information of new destinations,
services, tours, new regulations, and rules yearly.
17
1.6 Company analysis
1.6.1 Company profile
Smileviet Trading and Travel Limited Co are established in March of 2005, a
small size travel company with fifteen employees and thirty tour guides. It head
office is located in Hanoi and one branch office in Hochiminh city.
The establishment of the company can be considered as the personal evolution of
company founder, Mr. Luu Moc Thuy. In 1995, the travel company where the
founder worked as its Taiwanese market tour guide ended the business due to the
owner migrated to the US. Since the market and the demand for making a tour in
Vietnam was strong and growing and the support of the foreign partner, Mr. Thuy
decided to take over the business of the Taiwanese market with other guide
colleagues. Three years of knowledge and experience of a tour guide, he could
not set up a company with his limited resources. He then literally ran the
operation by himself alone, from booking hotel restaurants to doing bank
transactions. By assuring the service standard as well as respecting business the
deals, only promising what you can do, he has gradually gained good reputation
and made the business went on well, he hired the first tour operator, an
accountant until today to a travel company with nearly fifteen employees and
other thirty freelance tour guides.
Its main activity is providing full package of travel service across Vietnam. Its
responsibilities are ranging from planning tour, booking air, land and sea

transportation, introducing daily cuisine, accommodation and the tour guide. The
company is acting as travel service provider and its customer sources are supplied
from the aboard travel agents from Taiwan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia,
Singapore, China, and Norway.
18
Because of the above reasons, Mr. Thuy is the core of company operation
mechanism. Alike the accountants, the rest of the colleagues are not specialized
in tourism industry. Based on personal experience and knowledge of the field, Mr.
Thuy conducts all training and instruction to all staff in order to handle the related
activities of an inbound travel company. Therefore, the company is working in the
simplest form consisting of tour operator who setups the tour program, the
reservation that makes arrangement for all the supporting services from hotel,
restaurant, transportation… and the sale to communicate and receipt tour
bookings from the travel agents. Other activities like marketing, business planning,
advertising, quality control and measurement… are totally left out. Even the most
popular communication channel is the website representing the company has not
been created.
1.6.2 The operation process
Customers who have a need of travel may look for travel information on website,
advertising leaflet, and mass media or through their friends and plan up their trips.
When they have decided a destination, they may contact our travel agents and tell
the agents what their interests are, expectations of the trip, our agents will provide
consultant service and help the tourists pick up the program or tour package that is
suitable of their needs. By this way, our agents will gather up all individuals to
form a tour team or group and make tour request to Smileviet Company together
with the passenger quantity, tour dates and the particular interests in sightseeing,
specific accommodation, transportation … requests of the customers. The tour
operator is in charge of receiving tour requests. Upon receiving the order, the
operator then will plan the tour program, arrange places to visit, select hotels,
restaurants, transportation means, and tour guide … After a program is created,

19
and booking officers will contact hotels, transportation, restaurants and domestic
flight… and make necessary reservation. When all reservations are confirmed,
then the program will be delivered to our aboard agent for final confirmation. If
no any amendment, then we will be ready for picking up passengers at airport. On
the date of arrival, our tour guide will meet and take over the traveling
responsibilities of the whole group. From this moment on, our tour guide will
accompany the travel group, provide tour guiding services, looking after the
eating, staying, visiting… of the trip. Our responsibility is over when tour guide
send off all the tourists to the airport for departure.
Obviously, Smileviet Company plays a passive role in attracting the tourists. It
leaves alone all the marketing, advertising, promotions activities performed by
the travel agents. Hence, Smileviet Company has no knowledge of who are its
customers, what are their characteristics, the reasons they choose to visit Viet
Nam… and the markets information. It also does not have any tourist satisfaction
measurement methodology in order to keep track or make improvement.
1.6.3 Smileviet customers
On table 2, for the year 2006, company has served 7.110 tourists coming from
seven different markets. The reasons why Taiwanese accounts for 93 percent as it
is the first market of the company and the business partnership with the travel
agents has been built for a decade. However, the Taiwanese market has reached
the mature stage under fierce competition. The Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia,
China, and Thailand are newly explored markets with highly promising in growth.
Nevertheless, the length of stay for those markets is generally short. The Norway
market has the longest stay and also is the highest expenditure tourist and prefers
superior service with premium price. The most profitable market in the future will
20
be the Norwegian. On the other hand, the Taiwanese market is remarkable in size
and can generate considerable figure of profit to balance the operational costs.
However, there is a new trend for Norwegian market, in stead of touring in

Vietnam alone; the tourists often request visiting other neighborhood countries
around Vietnam as well. This trend strongly impacts to the margin of Smileviet
Company but also pushes the competition situation to a bigger level. Now
company must fight to retain tourists spending more time in Vietnam than others.
The tourists arrival of the first quarter of 2007 have rapidly increased and almost
half the figure of the previous year according to Table 3.

Table 2: Company tourist information of 2006
Classify by age
Total
tourists
< 16 Y 17 – 30 Y 31 - 50 Y 51 Y >
Average
day of stay
Market
7110 258 1188 3275 2389 7 – 5
Taiwan 6666 242 1057 3075 2292 4 – 6
Hong Kong 54 0 10 23 21 5 – 6
Japan 10 1 3 6 6 – 8
Norway 70 42 20 8 15 - 17
Malaysia 65 5 16 38 6 4 – 6
Thai Land 213 11 53 107 42 4 – 6
China 32 9 9 14 4 – 6

(Source: abstract from Smileviet Company business report of 2006 submit to Hanoi
Tourism Department)
21

Table 3: Company tourist information of 1
st

quarter 2007
Classify by age
Total
tourist
< 16 Y 17 – 30 Y 31 - 50 Y 51 Y >
Market
3251 103 578 1616 954
Taiwan 2242 85 439 1080 638
Hong Kong 90 54 36
Malaysia 241 2 55 125 59
Thai Land 594 16 84 307 187
Norway 84 50 34

(Source: abstract from Smileviet Company 1
st
Quarter business report of 2007
submit to Hanoi Tourism Department)
Smileviet Company has chosen the Norwegian as its ultimate target market.
Firstly it is a great potential market, look at the statistic figure of 2006 prepared
by Vietnam National Tourism Administration, the number of Norwegian visiting
Vietnam was 12.684 out of 3.5 million foreign visitors to Vietnam and out of 4.6
million of Norway population. Due to distance between Norway to Vietnam
requires more than fourteen hours of air travel; the tourists usually plan carefully
for their trip and the length of the trip usually more extended. Norwegian is one
of the high GDP countries; while visiting Vietnam which has relative lower living
costs will free the worries of over spending. Consequence, the Norwegian tourists
tend to use more extra service like spa, hair-face-nail beauty service, massages
and spend greater amount in shopping. The tour price is almost no or little
different between travel companies due to the competition situation, the main
22

margin is the earnings from the additional services that the tourists consume. 80
percent of tour members has participated in the extra service during the trip
compares to other Asia markets only 40 to 60 percent. If Smileviet Company
succeeds in the Norwegian market, its business will expand in the Northern
Europe market. In addition, Smileviet Company has already contracted with a
Norway travel agent and two travel trips were taken place successfully in 2006.
Smileviet Company has positioned successfully as a sound and reliable partner in
this single agent but still unknown to the Norwegian. To maximize the market
potential, Smileviet Company must be well known by the Norwegian and the
Norwegian tour agents or tour operator.
Some facts of the Norwegian market.
Norway has the population of 4.6 million with growing and aging characteristics.
IMF forecast GDP of 2007 is USD45.449; it is one of the highest living nations in
the world. The Norwegians have good command of English language and don’t
mind to receiving information or brochures in English. The internet access rate is
68 percent of population and they like to seek detailed information and plan their
holidays before setting off to foreign countries. The annual leave of Norwegian
employees is about 25 days and Nordic people regard holidays as a high priority
and many take 3-4 breaks during the year. The Norwegian are fond of history,
heritage and culture, get close to the local, and adventurous. The most important
characteristic of the service provider is friendliness. They are often very
conscious of the environment issues
9
.
1.6.4 Company Product
In general, the tour products or programs offered by Smileviet Company are
package tours that lead tourists to sightsee the famous and popular sites. They are
23
a set of travel destinations for tourists to visit either from north to south or vice
versa according to the length of trip, the distance and time allowance. See

appendix 1 for two tour programs of Smileviet Company and Saigontourist
Company, one starts from Hochiminh city and ends at Hanoi and the other one is
counter way. However company is able to lead tourists to any destinations or sites
within Vietnam territory. In addition, most of the time the travel agents aboard
advertise, design, propose the travel destinations to tourists or the tourists
customize their trip by selecting the visiting stop-over they want to experience.
Smileviet Company follows the requested destinations to setup a tour program
and suggests revision if the requests are inappropriate. Begin from 2006, to satisfy
the trend of visiting Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia in one trip for the Norwegian
tourists, Smileviet Company has surveyed and already contracted with several
travel companies to provide tourism service in the above countries. This opens up
a new tour product combining three countries in a single trip even though not
directly serviced by Smileviet Company at a whole.
1.7 Smileviet Company SWOT
Strengths
• High credibility and good relationship with partner travel agencies built by
company’s director that generate customers.
• Already establish connection with Norway market and in steady growth.
Weaknesses
• Passive and total relying on aboard travel agents to attract business.
• Does not have long term or yearly plans and not setup department
responsible for the planning tasks.