SCHOOL OF HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM – HUE UNIVERSITY (HAT-HU) ATTENDING THE 4TH TRAINING PROGRAM WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE PROJECT “TOURIST” IN PATTAYA, THAILAND

Within the framework of the project “TOURIST – Competence centers for the development of sustainable tourism and innovative financial management strategies to increase the positive impact of local tourism in Thailand and Vietnam”, from 25th to 29 March, 2019, the 4th Training program with the main purpose of gradually shaping centers and the creation of the marketing plan for participating universities from Thailand and Vietnam is held in Pattaya – a famous beach city of Thailand.

In this training, Hue University had 3 representatives:

1. Dr. Tran Thi Ngoc Lien – Head of Department of Hospitality Management, HAT-HU
2. MSc. Le Minh Tuan – Head of Department of Event Management and Service Marketing, HAT-HU
3. MSc. Hoang Trung Kien – Deputy Head of Department of Planning and Finance, Hue University

Participants from Hue University

Following the success of three previous training programs, this training especially focused on orientation and improvement of the process to shape the organization and management for the centers. By presentation the final Business Model Canvas and analyzing examples from EU, participating universities from Thailand and Vietnam have lively discussed to draw valuable lessons.

Besides, other important contents related to building marketing strategies are appropriately allocated during the rest of the training:

• The creation of a Marketing Plan for the competence centers for sustainable tourism development
• Choosing and building promotion tools: online/offline
• Brand creation for the competence centers

Representatives from HAT-HU presented ideas related to the Business Model Canvas and Marketing plan for the competence centers

After presentation and discussion, participating universities have grasped and understood the most important steps to communicate and promote effectively their own Competence centers for the development of sustainable tourism such as: (1) Mission statement, (2) Environment analysis, (3) Goals and Objectives, (4) Marketing strategy formulation, (5)Implementation, evaluation and control, (6) Engagement continuum.

              A day of field trip to Ban Jamrung – a community-based tourism (CBT) & self-reliance village has also been organized for participants to learn how suburban Pattaya people develop CBT.

Participants in the 4th training program of the project (in the field trip day)

            From the results obtained from 4 training programs that were successfully organized, HAT-HU is confident in the ability to successfully build and develop a competence center to successfully implement the project’s objectives, especially the task of raising awareness of sustainable tourism development for stakeholders and creating more initiatives on sustainable tourism through improved networking.

Le Minh Tuan