ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis supervisor Mrs. Nguyễn Thị Tường M.A., who introduced me to the topic " Handling Tourist's Complaints" and helped me very much to do this thesis. If I had not received her valuable guidance, comments and criticism, I would not have completed my thesis. And I would also like to express my indebtedness to all my teachers at Foreign Language Department, especially Miss Sandy Gannon, Mrs. Vũ Thị Việt Hương M.A., Miss Megan Hull for their advices along with their great help with useful and up-to-date materials concerning my field of study. My sincere thanks to all librarians and teachers at the Foreign Language Department of Vinh University, teachers of English at Nghi Lộc I, NguyÔn HuÖ high school, ASEM Việt Nam, ASEM Links and people from Phó Th¬ng company, who helped me to carried out the surveys for my thesis I am in debt to my family, my classmates who were willing to help me whenever I got difficult, and gave me the best conditions to finish this thesis. Vinh, May 2009 Nguyễn Thị Tó Anh TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i TABLE OF CONTENTS ii LISTS OF TABLES AND FINGURES v PART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Reasons for choosing the subject 1 2. Scopes of the study 2 3. Methods of study .2 4. Aims of the study .2 5. Design of the study 2 PART B: DEVELOPMENT Chapter I: Theoretical background . 3 1.1 Functions of language .3 1.2 Conversation 5 1.2.1 Context 5 1.2.2 Adjacency pairs and exchanges 6 1.2.3 Turn-taking 7 1.3 Written discourse and spoken discourse 8 1.4 Speech act 8 1.5 Politeness and strategies of politeness .10 1.5.1 Politeness and face .10 1.5.2 Strategies of politeness .11 1.6 Summary 11 Chapter II: Handling complaints of tourists 14 2.1 Definition of complaints 14 2.1.1 Definition 14 2.1.2 Categories of complaints .14 2.2 The causes of dissatisfaction .15 2.2.1 Service quality 15 2.2.2 Dishonesty 16 2.2.3 Safety and Security .16 2.2.4 Hygiene problems .19 2.2.5 Maintenance problems .19 2.2.6 Others 19 2.3 Types of customer's complaints 20 2.3.1 Oral complaints 20 2.3.2 Written complaints 20 2.4 Handling complaints 21 2.4.1 The value of complaints .21 2.4.2 Benefits of successful complaint handling .22 2.4.3 The common form for responses to guests' complaints 23 2.4.4 Dealing with serious complaints 24 2.4.5 Dealing with complaints face-to-face 25 2.4.6 Dealing with telephone complaints .31 2.4.7 Dealing with written complaints 31 2.5 Summary 31 Chapter III: Results, findings and suggestions 37 3.1 Objectives 37 3.2 Participants 37 3.3 Results and discussion 38 3.4 Suggestions 42 3.5 Summary 42 PART C: CONCLUSION 46 1. Recapitulation .46 2. Suggestions for further study 46 References Appendix LISTS OF TABLES AND FINGURES Pages 1 TABLES: - The rate of tourists' ages 37 - The table of frequency of contacting with representatives 38 - The table of getting problems with transportation 39 - The table of in-resort service 40 - The table of accommodation's quality 40 2 FINGURES: - Chaos of transportation in Hµ Néi capital of ViÖt Nam 17 - Chaos of transportation in Hå ChÝ Minh city of ViÖt NamPART A: INTRODUCTION 1. Reasons for Choosing the Subject The higher standard of living is, the more people demand to raise their spirit life. One of the best ways that people choose most is tourism. After a long, hard-working time, everyone wants to relax by enjoying a travel to somewhere out of their usual environment. There are many reasons for people to travel such as: leisure, business, visit or other purposes. Nowadays, many countries consider tourism as a top priority in national economic development. In Vietnam, in particularly, there was 3,6 million international tourist arrivals and 17,3 million domestic tourists and it earned 2,25 billion dollars. Currently, over 240,000 Vietnamese employed directly in the tourism industry, about 470,000 indirectly for a total of over 700,000 jobs. (http://english.vietnamnet.vn/travel/2008/11/815721/). The numbers above show us the important role of tourism in national economy. Besides, it is also a means of spreading the image of a country, raising the understanding among people in the world. Visiting a country, visitors are able to discover the history, the culture, people, beautiful spots, food and life style of it. The development of tourism industry depends on many factors in which service quality is one of the most vital ones. The quality of service is good, tourists will be satisfied and of course, we will keep their loyalty and ensuring that they will come back again. However, if there is something wrong during the time they use the services that make them dissatisfied, they can complain that problem to the representatives. The question is how to handle those complaints, it is not easy at all, it is really an art. During the time of learning tourism - major subject, pragmatics, discourse analysis, we understand about the language in general and the politeness strategies in particular, that is the way using language to make tourists satisfied after their complaints. Facing with the complaints of customers, if we can handle them carefully, we contribute to the development of tourism industry of Viet Nam. These are the reasons why we want to choose the study "handling with tourist's complaints". 2. Scopes of the study The study focus on the types of complaints and the ways to overcome them. 3. Methods of study The study based on the methods: - Collective method -Analysis of questionnaires and synthetic method 4. Aims of the study We do the study with the following aims: - To help the fourth- year- students in Foreign Languages Department in Vinh University to understand more about tourism professional knowledge - To provide a reference material for travel agents 5. Design of the study This study is divided into three main parts: 3 A. Introduction 4 B. Development - Chapter I: Theoretical Backgrounds - Chapter II: Handling Complaints of Tourists - Chapter III: Results, Findings and Suggestions 5 C. Conclusion PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER I: THEORETICAL BACKGROUND This chapter presents the theoretical background on which the study is based. It concludes five sections in which: Section 1.1 presents the functions of language, then conversations are analyzed in section 1.2. The differences between spoken and written discourse are pointed out in section 1.3. Speech- acts, politeness and strategies of politeness are presented in sections 1.4 and 1.5. Finally, section 1.6 briefly summaries some previous studies. 1.1 Functions of Language In the history of Discourse Analysis, many authors have tried to find out the main functions of language such as: Halliday (1970) with Ideational/ Interpersonal and Textual, Jakobson (1960) with Referential and Emotive, Bubler (1934) with Reprentative and Expressive, Lyons (1977) with Descriptive and Social Expressive. However, Brown and Yule's division of language functions into Transactional and Interpersonal seem to be the most suitable ways. They proposed that: "that function which language serves in the expression of content, we will describe as transactional and that function involves in expressing social relationship and personal attitude, we will describe as interactional" (Discourse Analysis, Cambridge University Press, 1983:1). In other words, based on the two functions we can know the reason and purpose that the conversation is performed and we also realize the participants' relationship as well as their thoughts and ideas. Transactional language is that which occurs when the participants are concerned with the exchanges of goods and services. In transactional language, the speaker gives the information to hearer to get something (either goods or services) or to offer goods/services together, called message-oriented. If he/she receives directions to go to somewhere or of doing something, he/she gets the services/goods. Moreover, a prominent feature of transactional language is in written language such as business writing like: letters, memoranda between two companies, reports or bills to request and provide information to carry out business dealing, etc. Transactional language is also realized by "turn" (speaker-hearer take turns in conversation), "move" (ask and answer questions), "act" (use language to request or complain). In daily life, people use language not only to express, to inform or receive thoughts and ideas but also to establish and maintain social relationship, called interactional or interpersonal language. In other words, interpersonal language occurs when speakers are less concerned with the exchange of goods and services than with socializing. Obviously, interpersonal language is relationship-oriented. For example: We meet our friends in the morning and greet them "Good morning!", "How are you?", or "It is a fine day, isn't it?" In Western culture, it is very polite to start a conversation with topic like weather. However, in Viet Nam culture, people concern more about personal questions and a question may become a greeting like " Where are you going?", "What are you doing?", "How about your family?". We can conclude that in a conversation, participants should share the same knowledge backgrounds or common point of view to achieve a successful conversation. In addition, interpersonal language associates with conversation when language is used to open, close and maintain conversation by the attempt to make a good impression on the interlocutor of speaker. Basing on those features, we can summarize the comparison between transactional and interactional language in the table below: Transactional Language -Message-oriented - A prominent feature in written language - Formed by "turns", "moves", "acts" Interactional Language - Relationship-oriented - Associated with conversation - Formed by common background knowledge between speaker and hearer 1.2 Conversation Dictionary of English Language and Culture defines that conversation is an informal talk in which people exchange views, feelings and thoughts. (1992:79). According to Akmajian.A., Demers.R.A and Harnish.R.M. (1988:415), conversation is usually constructed by sequences of expressions by more than a single speaker. This structure is rarely consciously apparent to speaker. There are many different definitions of a conversation but all of them define a conversation as "an informal talk" and there are at least two people who exchange information to each other. When people interact with each other, each person will take part in the conversation which happens in a particular context, interpret the situation, make sense of it and act accordingly. 1.2.1. Context Let's take an example: "Where are you going?" In Vietnamese culture, this question may be a greeting form when people meet each other. However, this question is also used when someone wants to get information from each other. This example shows us the important role of context in interpreting utterances in conversation. Therefore, the functions of language should be performed within a context and it is divided into two types: non-linguistic context and linguistic context. Linguistic context is the language that surrounds or accompanies the pieces of discourse under analysis. That means when analyzing a piece of discourse, we need to look at words, phrases or expressions before of after it. For example: The red skirt left the room without saying a word. When we read the sentence, we wonder whether the word "the red skirt" is a girl or a skirt. We have to pay attention to the words "leave" and "say" and decide that it is a girl because a skirt can not leave or say. Non-linguistic context within which the discourse take place include the type of communicative event (joke, story, lecture, greeting, conversation); the topic; the purpose, the event; the setting ( including location, time of day,