Marketing plan for launch basic instinct tour in OLG corp

Problem: What should be marketing plan for the sort of sexual tour to be accepted in Vietnam tourism market?. Purpose: The aim of my project is to analyze the tourism market in Vietnam

DANG THU HUONG

MARKETING PLAN FOR LAUNCH “BASIC

INSTINCT” TOUR IN OLG CORP

MASTER PROJECT MASTER IN BUSINESS & MARKETING MANAGEMENT

Tutor’s name: Dr NGUYEN DUC TRI

Ho Chi Minh City

(2010)

This project is completely difficult to me because it’s a quite new ideas and different from my knowledge and experience

I extend my appreciation to those who help me with their precious comment and constructive suggestions to this project:

 Dr NGUYEN DUC TRI gave me really useful advices to

finish this project effectively

 I am truly indebted to Mr PHAN LE DUNG, my mentor, for his wide knowledge, experience and support in improving the project quality

 My colleges for their sharing and understanding due to my hard time to finish this project

 My family, for their deep understanding, patience and moral support during my studying time

Ho Chi Minh City, December, 2010

DANG THU HUONG

TABLE OF CONTENT

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3

1 INTRODUCTION 4

1.1 Rationale of the project 4

1.2 Scope of the project 4

1.3 Limitation of the project 4

2 LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Marketing planning process 5

2.2 Instinct and sexual tourism 10

3 RESEARCH DESIGN 12

3.1 Hypothesis 12

3.2 Research methodology 12

3.3 Questionnaire design 12

3.4 Sample size and sampling frame 13

3.5 Findings and analysis 13

3.6 Research outline 16

4 SITUATION ANALYSIS 16

4.1 External analysis 16

4.2 Internal analysis 24

4.3 SWOT analysis 25

5 MARKETING STRATEGY 26

5.1 Marketing objectives 26

5.2 Segmenting 27

5.3 Targeting 28

5.4 Characteristics of target customers 29

5.5 Positioning 29

5.6 Marketing Mix 30

5.7 Budgeting 36

5.8 Implementation and Control 37

6 CONCLUSION 38

REFERENCE 39

APPENDIX 40

Figures and tables Content

Figure 1 Philip Kotler’s marketing planning process

Figure 2 Vietnamese population growth rate Figure 3 Porter’s forces model

Table 2 Fix a price base on cost

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Title: Marketing plan for launch “Basic Instinct” tour in OLG corp

Problem: What should be marketing plan for the sort of sexual tour to be accepted in

Vietnam tourism market?

Purpose: The aim of my project is to analyze the tourism market in Vietnam together

with consumer purchasing behavior of Vietnamese couples regarding to sex health and tourism in order to create the marketing plan towards marketing mix (4Ps) for launch

“Basic Instinct” tour in OLG corp in Vietnam

Method: This project will be mainly focused on the information gathering from the

primary data by conducting questionnaires distribution to gain the insight information for this market Moreover, the researchers realized that the secondary data can give us

the general overview for this market The theoretical framework is based on “BUSINESS STRATEGY - The art, Science, and Craft of decision making” book by Philip Kotler

(1988) This framework illustrated the outline of marketing planning process for service organizations It consists of 5 steps, beginning with the market & environment research After fixing the targets and setting the strategies, they will be realised by the marketing mix in step 4 The last step in the process is the marketing controlling However, the step 4 of formulating marketing objectives and strategies will be focused

Conclusion and Recommendation: As the rapid growth of tourism market in

Vietnam, many companies would like to take the opportunity to gain the market value Orient Lemongrass corp is known as the tourism company also would like to be

in this market that comes with the new tour, launching “Basic Instinct” tour for couple In order to compete with the existing rivalries, the company should have sustained marketing objective and strategies toward their target customers Since the “Basic Instinct” tour is considered as the product/service development for Orient Lemongrass corp; therefore, the marketing objective is to promote the tour about value added and benefit of this new tour in order to increase sales volume by 15 percent in one year Moreover the created marketing plan are compatible with this marketing objective in order to archive the objective The specific approach for marketing plan will be explained in each element of the marketing mix

1 INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale of the project

There are many tourism typologies : Sports travel, Zen tourism, Space tourism and others The trend in combination of tourism and a kind of product or service today seem to be human’s desire

And now, in order to compete with the existing rivalries, OLG - ORIENT LEMONGRASS CORPORATION that has specialized in tourism, is developing the sort of sexual tour that

is specialized tour for couples

The intensive knowledge and experiences help us to have the best information about the

ideal destination, time and values suitable for special holiday for couples

Problem statement

Once the company has taken this tour into its consideration, the company should study about the customer’s needs and behavior towards sex health and tourism Then, to run it efficiency and gaining a competitive advantage over the competitor, the company create sustain marketing plan over the additional service Therefore, the problem statement can

be stated as “What should be marketing plan for the sexual tourism to be accepted by Vietnamese tourists?”

1.2 Scope of the project

The aim of my project is to analyze the t o u r i s m market in Vietnam together with consumer purchasing behavior of Vietnamese couples regarding to sex health and tourism in order to create the marketing plan towards marketing mix (4Ps) for launch

sexual tourism in Vietnam

1.3 Limitation of the project

There are limitations concerning this project The first is that it focused upon the couples in

Ho Chi Minh city Although the response rate was relatively high, the case could not represent the entire the couples in Vietnam

The second concern is of the tool used in the questionnaire Acquiescence refers to the tendency that respondents reply to a set of questions in a consistent way disregarding the meaning of it

The third concern is that of all respondents Although, these questionnaires sent out were written completely in Vietnamese (see appendix), there could still be misinterpretation for each question to each respondent

The last concern is qualitative survey It can make my research on the accuracy limits

2 LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Marketing planning process

Fundamentally, marketing planning is a series of activities which are tackled in a logical sequence in a way that leads to the setting of marketing objectives and the devising of programs to meet them Thus, the marketing plan becomes a framework for identifying where and why marketing resources are going to be allocated, when they are to come into play and how they are to be integrated in order to make maximum impact The outcome of this process is the strategic marketing plan

The marketing process model based on the publications of Philip Kotler It consists of 5 steps, beginning with the market & environment research After fixing the targets and setting the strategies, they will be realised by the marketing mix in step 4 The last step in the process is the marketing controlling

Figure 1: Philip Kotler’s marketing planning process Step 1: Market & Environment analysis

The purpose of the first step, the situation review is concerned with evaluating the future prospects of the company

Much of the data collected comes from external sources, and is concerned with the business and economic environment, together with market and competitor analysis

((Hopkins, 1983; Kotler, 1988)) Not only is the current situation analyzed, but also

future trends and their significance are considered Internal sources provide additional

information and help to identify the company’s strengths and weaknesses

(SWOT) analysis is to identify the key components of marketing information from the vast amount of the data generated by the marketing audit By grouping all the salient information under these four headings, it becomes possible for the organization to highlight the external opportunities and threats, and to weight them

against its current internal strengths and weaknesses.( (Hopkins, 1983; Kotler, 1988))

The marketing audit and the subsequent SWOT analysis can only reflect reality if some assumptions are made about the future These might concern the number of the competitors, the political climate, the general economic well-being of certain markets, and

separate identifiable needs (Hopkins, 1983; Kotler, 1988)

There are a number of different ways of identifying consumer market segments in terms of customer characteristics as follow:

3 Psychographics

This is more developed form of segmenting customers and is concerned with defining people’s behavior and lifestyles This factor is based on variables such as customer attitudes, underlying personality types, motivation and aspiration

4 Geography

Geographical segmentation is relatively simple and is often among the first approach

considered by many services organizations because it can help identify where customers are located and how to reach them

Market segmentation process

The segmentation process follows four broad stages as show below

1 Define the market to be addressed

Market definition involves specifying the customer group to which the company is seeking to market its services Though, choice of a market to be addressed involves a consideration of the following:

- Type of customers to be services

- Geographic scope

- Breadth of services to be provided

- Decisions regarding single or multisite distribution

- Areas of the value-added chain in which the service organization decides to be involved

2 List who buys

At this process, the factors that outlined above were use to identify who buys product/services of the company

3 List what is bought

A comprehensive list should be made of the characteristics of company services,

including the different ways in which they are used, where they are bought (channels), when they are bought, and how (option for payment)

4 Forming segment group

At this point, the market research, clustering software, or researchers own judgment were use to combine various factors explained above to identify the target customer of the company

Step 3: Setting marketing strategy

Marketing objectives

Following identification and statement of key strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, and the explicit statement of assumptions about conditions affecting the business, setting marketing objectives is the most important step in the marketing planning process The important point about marketing objectives is that they should be about services and markets only Since change is inevitable, it is necessary for

company to consider the two main dimensions of commercial growth, i.e service

development and market development (Hopkins, 1983; Kotler, 1988)

- • Selling exiting services to existing segments

- • Developing new services for existing segments

- • Extending existing services to new segments

- • Developing new services for new segments

Step 4: Marketing mix

The manager should also outline specific strategies for such marketing mix elements in each target market: new products, field sales, advertising, sales promotion, prices and distribution.( Philip Kotler, 2005)

In order to be able to satisfy the needs and wants of the market, the organization needs to design a market offering and present it to the market for consumption One of themost famous tools which could help the organization success the above objectives is the

These four elements are necessary for organization to consider in order to success in the marketing The four elements or “4Ps” are described as per below:

1 Product (or market entity)

This element is concerned about the nature of their customers’ requirements Once the marketers know about the customers’ need, they should have use of this knowledge to design the product or service to meet their customers’ satisfaction The defining the range of goods or services that will be produced such as for how long they will be produced and how they will be package is also one factor which needs to consider (McCarthy, 1960) A hotel company might treat each of its hotels as a separate product with its own unique product management requirements arising from its location, the state of the building and its facilities, local competition, and its strengths and weaknesses compared with others in the area (Brassington & Pettitt 2005, p 438)

2 Price

Because services are intangible, their pricing can be very difficult to set and to justify (Brassington & Pettitt, 2005) The service providers are completely free to decide their own prices, with due respect to competition and the needs, wants and perceptions of customers In setting prices, however, service providers can find it very difficult to determine the true cost of provision, perhaps because of the difficulty of costing professional or specialist skills, or because the time and effort required to deliver a service vary widely between different customers, yet a standard price is needed (Brassington & Pettitt 2005, p 439) Kotler and Amstrong (2004) refers that the normally people prefer lower price, but for some produce, when the quality is concerned, the low price is no more attractive

employ to stimulate an interest in the minds of consumers and ultimately an intention to purchase ‘Promotion’ hence includes a consideration of advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, public relations, personal selling, and exhibitions/trade fairs (McCarthy, 1960) In the same direction, promotion is the way that company communicate the benefit or value add of their product or service to persuade the target customer to buy them (Kortler and Amstrong, 2004)

Step 4: Marketing controlling

The most important elements of marketing controlling, which are normally tracked, are: budget, financial,sales…

The purpose of a marketing controlling is, thus, to pull together all the revenues and costs involved in marketing into one comprehensive document It is a managerial tool that balances what is needed to be spent against what can be afforded, and helps make choices about priorities It is then used in monitoring performance in practice

2.2 Instinct and sexual tourism

The strongest of all instincts is admittedly that of Self-Preservation The second strongest instinct is the sexual, or the instinct of propagation These are fundamental and permanent, whether consciously recognized or not.(James.F.Scott, 1930)

Sexual which always do increasing in inquiring in 2 sexes, was proved to occur since human was born till die

To reach the age of puberty, human really has expressed a sexual desire and depend on by ages, the sexual desire will have different levels In reality, there’s no age which is too old

to make love With 2 sexes, the improvement in their sexual relationship is very important because sexual help them to strengthen the immune system and their health (James.F.Scott, 1930)

People want to experience new feeling in sexual life but most of them are lack of the skill and knowledge to communicate with “partner” about their needs as well as their weak points in sexual or other relevant Sexual brings great emotion to both parties so they need

to care each other “It will not be good if demands or schedules of parties hinder this relationship Moreover, if one does not take care on partner or never talk to partner about one’s feeling, the relationship may be affected”

So WHY should have sexual tourism?

The idea comes from the fact that lots of couples usually complain about their marriage life especially sex life Although their health is still good and there is nothing to bored together, many couples find in them the love fire of sex life has been withering year by year of marriage

Moreover, if you're married or thinking about getting married, at some point or another you've wondered what better sex in marriage would be like or how sex in marriage could

be improved Keeping the sexual spark alive in a marriage or in a long-term relationship is easier said than done (DiscoveryHealth.com)

As we know, exploring love is endless because love is vast covering the whole world and couples always want it besides in their life Day after day following the circle of work and life, their feelings relating to their making love more and more decreasing So, if they have

a chance , they will temporarily to delay their working to have a trip to find out their love feelings

Not only considering the enjoyment of sex as the way to improve quality of life, the problem of safe sexual was considered as the main idea in the modern sexual : that is the choosing sexual behavior that bring the safe, self-proctection and their partner, that not caused the harmful health; emphaszied the personality‘s responsible in their sexual life According to Wikipedia, many couples in U.S use sex toys to improve quality of sexual life, to break down the boring and to get the satisfaction in mental and physical

So, they usually perform their trips to look for satisfaction in their body– relaxion, stress relief and spiritual satisfaction – a demand of beauty recepting and entertaiment The receptor on aesthetic value from travel entertaiment hobby services brings travel inspiration in humans Impression of travel developed by virations, emotions coming from the impact of things, phenomenon at the travel place These impressions go into tourists memory and reappear regularly Of all, our company understand tourism as follow: “ Tourism is an activity of man to seek dreams (expectations), memories and pleasures of physical and mental ” However, the trips was made spontaneously and no science

For this features, our company focused resources and founded the first travel company and unique in Vietnam: the sort of sexual tour - specialized tour for couples The travel which

is expected to satisfy the consumer’ desire, is simple and practical

Part 1 : Customer behavior (Purchasing behavior)

This part provided the useful information for OLG about the purchasing behavior of their target customer in the sort of sexual tour in order to create the appropriate strategy

to meet the target customer needs The information gathering from this part illustrated the perspective and purchasing behavior of the couple as one that they were made a decision making together

Part II: Profile of respondents

This involve with the profile of respondent to identify the demographic of the couple which is the target customer for the sort of sexual tour in the company Moreover, the survey question of this part was constituted with the profile of the couple to identify the characteristic of them together

3.4 Sample size and sampling frame

Due to limited time, a sample group was selected in carrying out the questionnaire survey Respondents chosen were the couples traveling in Ho Chi Minh city and the couples coming in counseling center and condom shop

The sampling frames of my questionnaire are as below:

1 Target respondents - Customers who have interested in sex

health and travel 2.Distribution of questionnaire - Questionnaire were sent at counseling

company and condom shop collected by hired surveyor

- Questionnaire also sent to the tourists of

4 Number of questionnaire

responded

- 132 copies

3.5 Findings and analysis

The information from the finding is analyzed systematically according to the empirical finding gathering from primary and secondary data

In the secondary data, the information used to identify the structure of tourism market

and sex health in order to understand the internal strength and weakness of the company, and to identify opportunity and threat from external environment of this market

On the seminar “ The new research priapism disorder and the solution for couples” which was performed by Bayer Healthcare Company coordinate with the experts in Ho Chi Minh city and Ha Noi, declared : “The newest research on 8.500 male ( Age :18 -

75 ) in Western society and 5.000 male in Orient society shows that men who are over

40 ages has “Dynamic sexual” At this age period, the man is very considered important

of their sexual life ( Not only for himself but also for his partner ) Besides, based on the report dated 25/5/2010 of the Institute for Social Development Studies (ISDS) that the sexual ability of man the age of under 25 is higer than others group; The marriage group under 5 years is the group having the highest sexual life quality; and the one group over

5 years who have the descreasing sexual life quality

For the primary data, the questionnaire concerned about the perspective of target

customers towards sex health and tourism which aiming to create the marketing plan for launch sexual tourism in Vietnam

The primary data from the questionnaires is interpreted in quanlitative on the following:

Profile of the respondents and consumer behavior

The frequency and percentage were employed to analyze the data regarding the characteristics of the respondents and their behavior that influence the decision to select sexual tourism

Married/Living together: 97,7%

Income (millions VND) Under 200: 2,3%

200 millions VND

Sales and office:

25,8%

Technical/professional

Most of respondents have socioeconomic background

: 23,5%

Retired 9,1%

Other 21,2%

Customer behavior

12,1%

Over 2 times: 87,9%

Almost respondents show that traveling twice a year

Purchase Interested Very interested : 5,3%

Interested: 77,3%

Not sure: 17,4%

Not at all: 0%

Almost respondents are interested in this tour

Price (millions VND/couple) Under 10 : 14,4%

10-15: 73,5%

Over 15: 12,1%

Price is suitable for the tour around

10 – 15 millions VND/couple Promotion (purchase

influence)

Commentary: 17,4%

Word-of-mouth : 94,7%

Television/radio:

68,9%

Internet : 84,1%

Word-of-mouth and Internet are two way of communication the most influence to customers Distribution (payment) E-Banking : 28%

Cash: 67,4%

Credit card /ATM:

4,5%

Cash is always suitable for payment in Vietnam E-Banking is noticed

Product

characteristic

Products support

Neutral : 59,1%

Attractive : 30,3%

Less attractive : 10,6%

Respondents feel normal for products support Kegel

exercises

Neutral : 13,6%

Attractive : 68,9%

It is really attractive most of

Not attractive at all:

Customer’s desire Romance: 62,4%

More time together and better sex : 74,7%

Experiencing different cultures: 44,5%

Relax/sightseeing:

58,4%

Other : 9,8%

Respondents want romance and

relax/sightseeing for their

travelling Nearly 75% of

respondent need better sex and more time together in their trip

3.6 Research outline

This project will be mainly focused on the information gathering from the primary data by questionnaire distribution to gain information for sex health and tourism market and very useful for the target market Moreover, the secondary data give me the general of overview for sex health and tourism market This project consisted of 4 parts: Situation Analysis; Marketing objectives and strategies; Budget and Financial projection; Implementation and Control However, the part of marketing objectives and strategies will be focused

4 SITUATION ANALYSIS

4.1 External analysis

4.1.1 General market information

The booming of Vietnam tourism marketing has created many favorable conditions for a lot of players join in and to share the market

4.1.1.1 Market trend

Nowadays, most of tourists in general and most of couples in particularly like to take high quality tour Although price is higher, this kind of tour is prioritily selected for its being suitable and full quality meals, etc And tourism market is occuring high class with request for special tours, unique tours such as Zen tourism, Sport travel, “Divorce tourism” in India, Saigontourist with "Premium Travel" program – high price travel service for customers’ demands, or Will – professional in high quality tours – has tens luxury flexible tours to serve customers Especially, recently, Fiditourist has given group of tour named

"Highclass tours for individual taste" At the same time, Vietravel has designed unique Lazy tour group for itself However, tourists do not like to reuse repeated products but always want to explore, desire for new products, new ideas to satisfy their curiousity Most

of them want to look for satisfaction in their body and mind

In contrast with in the previous time, tourism now not only is a tourist excursion, sightseeing, enjoying but also is to meet some special demands and purposes of tourists According to a study by U.S magazine Forbes, now world tourism has 5 in 10 development trends, such as:

- Be interested in surrounding

- Family travel, travel without children

- Ask for advice from specialist

- Camping travel

Especially, those trends are suitable for couples who have slowly lost their sex feeling with each other due to day after day following the circle of work and life Couples therefore sometimes will put away work to travel to release stress, to get back their sex feeling even

to improve their quality of sex

4.1.1.2 Market growth

The tourism market has had steady growth and most of tourists tend to travel with their husband/wife or lover According to the VietNam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT), the number of domestic tourists is 28 millions in 2010 Moreover, the number of customers using condom and coming counselling company are strongly growing As Mr.Long, boss of Gspot shop, said “ After opening, first-week sales reached around 1.5

million dong and revenue now exceeds 10 million dong per week” In addition, Mr.Dinh Doan, director of counselling company, said “Hundreds of customers make calls and come his company everyday”

4.1.2 Macro environment (PEST analysis)

4.1.2.1 Political

Political arena has a huge influence upon the regulation of businesses It includes government regulations and legal issues under which businesses should operate The consumer demand may be interfered by both political and legal issues Nowaday, condom busniness and counselling company that are good for the public and the society, are being encourage to open by the government

Moreover, political environment of Viet Nam is quite stable In Vietnam, all major and minor areas of policy are decided and imposed by its one-party communist state Besides corruption problems, the legislative bodies within Vietnam continuously confirm to guarantee the legal capital and assets of domestic and foreign investors

However, Vietnam's consumer price inflation is remaining high at 8.7% in June Inflationary pressures still remain a threat to the economy

The government is targeting economic growth of 6.5% in 2010 and 7.5% in 2011 The government has repeatedly voiced its intention to focus on economic growth in 2010 and has also been pressuring commercial banks to lower lending rates to support economic growth, which suggest growth will come in higher than previously expected In our view,

infrastructure projects already initiated, such as the construction of a number of ports, roads and thermal power plants, will continue to provide support for the construction industry in 2010 Given Vietnam's increasing need to upgrade its infrastructure in order to sustain its economic growth in the coming years, we are expecting the government to announce more projects going forward.

4.1.2.3 Social/Cultural

In the conservative country where sex education is taboo, nowadays, Vietnamese attitudes

about sex were changing There are some condom stores with the variety of condoms opened as a new trend about sex education or sex life Moreover, more couples struggle

with the problem of mismatched sexual desire It’s the main reason couples seek counseling via counselling companies, TV and radio programs such as “Cửa sổ tình yêu” (Love window), “Bạn hãy nói với tôi” (Tell me) of Hochiminh and Hanoi

radio

 The population of about 85.846.997 people (in which the number of people living in urban areas is about 29.6%)

 Family scale: premium

 Marital status: about 73.2% married of total population aged 15 years or older The number of marriage in urban areas in particular counted for 69.5%

 Ethnic groups : Kinh (Viet) 86.2%, Tay 1.9%, Thai 1.7%, Muong 1.5%, Khome 1.4%, Hoa 1.1%, Nun 1.1%, Hmong 1%, others 4.1% (1999 census)

Figure 2: Vietnamese population growth rate

 Languages: Vietnamese (official), English (increasingly favored as a second language), some French, Chinese, and Khmer; mountain area languages (Mon-Khmer and Malayo-Polynesian)

 Religion: Buddhist 9.3%, Catholic 6.7%, Hoa Hao 1.5%, Cao Dai 1.1%, Protestant 0.5%, Muslim 0.1%, none 80.8% (1999 census-The world factbook.2008)

Table 1 :Vietnamese age group

4.1.2.4 Technological

The rapid development of technology is affecting the businesses in VN and all over the world Changes in the technology have changed the way businesses operate i.e Internet booking for tickets and holidays

Faster changing development in technology creates a need to react quickly for different businesses in order they want to maintain the competitive environment by providing the same innovative services, which their competitors are offering

Distribution of products by the use of technologies e.g marketing information systems, customer relationship management are also common practices with different businesses for effective services to their customers

4.1.3 Micro environment

Porter’s 5 forces model is used to analyse the current competition

Figure 3 : Porter’s 5 forces model

- The bargaining power of suppliers: Tourism is a resource based industry in the sense,

it is highly dependent on the natural beauty, uniqueness and society’s heritage Another important input in the tourism company is the service or hospitality offered to the tourist These destination characters along with other inputs such as accommodation, travel agents, airlines, transport, telecommunication and other infrastructure form the core of the suppliers to the tourism company Moreover, there are many travel agents and hotelers operate in each destination so the competition among these suppliers improves the quality of supplies to the company On the other hand, the resource base

of tourism companies comes from the fact that the physical and human resources are the main elements involved in it Therefore, the company has special policy for skilled, experiented specialists to keep them for long term work Furthermore, the company cooperates with a partner in Vietnam supplying condoms for sexual tourism In reality, the oriented culture in Vietnam is not really opened in sex issues, at present just there are some suppliers of condoms, sex toys and some counselling companies in Vietnam,

so their power in the average also

- The bargaining power of buyers: The buyers are the ‘tourists’ The bargaining power

of buyers would depend a lot on the information search, attitude, knowledge base, behaviour and socio-economic conditions of the buyers The buyers are to be considered as consumers of any product in the usual marketing sense They have to be supplied with proper information about the destination to motivate them to make the trip, with proper reminders to persuade them so as to finally act accordingly to the

travel plan In sexual tourism, buyer’s power is medium due to perceived benefits for the buyers’ desire with new and strange tour for couples

- The threat of new entrants: Most tour programs are alike, very few new tours are

given except some improvement, renewal existing tour programs Tour programs are applied for any type of customers As the result, for sexual tourism, the challenge to develope new tours for couple is just at medium level

- The threat of substitutes: It can take very different forms in tourism The Internet is a

threat to the traditional travel agent selling classical uncomplicated products Domestic tourism can be an excellent alternative to outbount tourism Moreover, travellers want variety each holiday, so loyalty may be difficult to acquire On the whole, the threat of

substitutes is a reality in tourism

- Rivalry among existing competitors:

 The structure of competition: In VietNam, there are some huge tourism companies such

Saigontourist, Fiditour, Viettravel…with abundant and stable number of tourists However, rivalry is intense because there are many small or equally sized competitors

So, OLG must create difference from others by designing new and strange products and services

 Degree of differentiation: The fact of being repeated, neutral, monotonous, tourism

products in Vietnam in general and in Ho Chi Minh city in particularly has impacted to the maximium exploitation the needs of domestic and foreign tourists It leads to unfair competition in way and quality of services between enterprises causing misapprehension and inaccurate assessment of customers Only big travel companies offer different products attracting customers such as Saigontourist, Fiditour, Will, etc Tours for couples include honeymoon tour and anniversary tour that are similar in travel companies So, degree of differentiation is low

 Strategic objectives: Companies’ statistics show that high quality tours now is about

30% Three tour objects of high quality tour are businessmen, wealthy families and group of young people working in companies with high income So, competitors are pursuing aggressive growth strategies, the degree of rivalry is more intense

With intense rivalry among existing companies, establishing a sustainable competitive advantage is critical for success in Vietnam tourism market Thus, if sexual tourism launchs a strategy developed in niche segment with target customer is couples, the level of competition will not be so high

4.1.4 Summary of opportunities and threats

Although the economy decreased, everyone still spends a lot of money for travel The favorable external factors (opportunities) for sexual tourism include fast-growing of population, distinctive name and product in tourism market, more attractive consumers due

to technology advance

Threats include the danger that this tour may Vietnamese cultural barrier related to sex

and competition due to duplicate product

The guideline to achieve for this statement mission is to:

- Continuously creating opportunities to exceed tourist’s expectations

- Extra efforts to satisfy tourist’s needs will be recognized

- Treating each other thoughtfully and with respect

- Continuously creating opportunities to improve ourselves through training, coaching and feedback

- All tour guides/employee will be friendly, courteous and professional

- Seeking tourists’ feedback through active tour

4.2.1.3 Company objectives

Based on the financial capacity and human resources of the company, based on the forecast growth rate of tourist number, based on strategic tourism development in Ho Chi Minh in