i HANOI UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF ACCOUNTING AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT  INTERNSHIP PROJECT REPORT STAGE 1 PROJECT TITLE: “GENERALS OF FOOTPRINT VIETNAM TRAVEL’S BUSINESS OPREATION” Student Name Major : BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION Instructor: MASTER NGUYEN QUOC CHINH HANOI - 2011 INDEX Page Acknowledge i Table of Contents ii List of tables iii List of figures iii Abstract iv PART 1. RESEARCH BACKGROUND 1 1.1. Introduction 1 1.2. Research objective 2 1.3. Object and scope of research 3 1.4. Methodology 3 PART 2. BUSINESS DESCRIPTION 5 2.1. History of development 5 2.2. Organizational structure 7 2.3. Human resources 10 2.4. Financial resources 11 PART 3. OPERATION RESULTS AND EVALUATION 16 3.1. Financial performance and productivity of Footprint 16 3.2. Footprint’s SWOT matrix 20 3.3. Methods to promote Footprint’s operation 21 PART 4. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION 23 4.1. Conclusion 23 4.2. Recommendation 23 Reference 26 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENT We would like to express our sincere thanks to all those who gave us the possibility to complete this report. We want to thank Footprint Vietnam Travel for giving us permission to do internship at the company, to do the necessary research work and to use company’s data. We have furthermore to thank two founders of Footprint, Dang Xuan Son and Nguyen Quang Thanh, who gave and confirmed this permission and supported us at all times to complete our report. We also would like to show our gratitude to our instructor, Master Nguyen Quoc Chinh, for his instructions and suggestions in all the time of research for and writing of this report. Our friends from QTKDT53 class supported us in orientation of our internship. We want to thank them for all their help, support and valuable hints. Especially, we would like to give our special thanks to our parents who encouraged us to complete this work. i TABLE OF CONTENTS ii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Overview of Footprint Vietnam Travel 4 Table 2.2: Human resources of Footprint Vietnam Travel in 3 years 10 Table 2.3: Balance sheet of Footprint in 3 years 11 Table 2.4: Footprint’s balance sheet data in 3 years based comparison 13 Table 3.1: Footprint’s income statement in 3 years 15 Table 3.2: International visitors to Vietnam in 3 year 2008, 2009 and 2010 16 Table 3.3: Exchange rate of USD to VND 17 Table 3.4: Employee Productivity and Profit per Employee of Footprint in 3 years 18 Table 3.5: SWOT matrix of Footprint 19 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Organizational structure of Footprint 7 iii ABSTRACT Tourism plays an important role in modern Vietnamese economy. Indeed, tourism has contributed around 5% in total GDP and created jobs for almost 10% of total labor force of Vietnam. Vietnam has emerged itself as a new tourist destination and the tourism offer has been increasingly diversified. Local and international tour operators has been the wings for the lift of the giant bird named tourism. For this reason, authors have applied to intern in Footprint Vietnam Travel Company and chose this topic “Generals of Footprint Vietnam Travel’s business operation”. In fact, Footprint has its own difference in comparison with most Vietnam tour operators in the basket which is their commitment to responsible tourism, a current new trend of travel that has been encouraged all over the world for the community and environment’s sake. The report first gives a brief introduction about Footprint and Footprint staff and tells Footprint’s story based on the timeline from the very beginning of Footprint until now, how Footprint has developed and successfully coped with its difficulties. It also mentions the efficient allocation of the resources and how it results in the income statements. Authors examine the firm operation based on the balance sheet and income statement in 3-year basis from 2008 to 2010. A SWOT analysis of the business operation is done to support the report. Ultimately, recommendations are made for the firm itself and for the authorities based on the analysis facts. In general, Footprint Vietnam Travel Company has appeared as a profitable, meanwhile responsible travel agency, with very promise future of tremendous opportunities. Footprint is on the right track, though quite tough sometimes. Moreover, it’s in a great position to strengthen its foothold and true values in this non-smoke, high competitive industry, and possible to increase its market share with the appropriate strategies. iv PART I RESEARCH BACKGROUND 1.1. Introduction The world has been changing. Urbanization, industrialization, globalization are the terms that has been using and implementing in most parts of the world. The quality of life has improved. More and more people are capable of affording not only their basic needs, but also their individual needs. However, the more urbanized, industrialized the world is, the more stressful people are, and the more people want to pack their bags for an escape from their habitat. And tourism in all over the world has been drastically developing for such reason. In term of external factors, Vietnam has what it takes to develop tourism. Vietnam is located in the favorable area where more than half of the national border is next to the West Sea, and open to Pacific Ocean. Moreover, Vietnam was born with various natural sites, from mountains to beaches with historical heritages and has thousand years of history with diversified cultures which could be ideal destinations for all who’re looking for a place to relax on vacation, to run away from the hustle and bustle of city life. In fact, the profit from tourism has contributed 5.25% for Vietnam GDP in 2010 with the growth of 16.9% per year. Also in 2010, domestic tourists were 28 million and 5 million international tourist. As such, tourism has created 480,000 direct jobs and one million indirect jobs for Vietnamese labor force (Source: ITDR in 2010). As a result of this significant growth in tourism, travel agencies have been springing up like weeds in order to satisfy all customer needs. However, this non-smoke industry has turned out to be one of the factors that destroy the environment due to its booming from coastal cities to inland villages. The World Bank, in a report in 2008, said that Vietnam suffered losses of some $70 million a year due to poor waste treatment solutions for the hospitality industry. And environmental pollution also makes Vietnam less attractive in competing with other countries since international tourists are more concerned about the environment. With such raising issue, travel agencies in 1 Vietnam have paid more attention to the so-called term “Ecotourism” which has been successfully implemented in some nations such as Japan, Singapore, Netherlands, Sweden, etc. Though ecotourism in Vietnam is at a beginning stage of development, there’re number of providers out of hundred thousand travel agencies with specific programs implementing ecotourism. And Footprint Travel agency is one of those providers. Not as big as Hanoi Toserco, Hanoi Tourist and Saigon Tourist, Footprint Travel is just a small-sized company but has enough courage and confidence to commit Responsible Travel as their value and business ethic. In fact, Footprint is highly recommended by Footprint Travel Guides, Lonely Planet, Trip Advisor, Ethical Travel Guide and Frommer’s. Footprint also values in being member of Responsibletravel.com, ASR, and RTC Vietnam. Especially, Footprint is the company who first came up with the idea of organizing RTC Vietnam (Responsible Travel Club of Vietnam) as membership association dedicated to building responsible travel and sustainable tourism to all regions in Vietnam. Ecotourism has numerous strictly requirements. Not only do visitors want Vietnam ecotourism planning to involve exotic sightseeing and cultural experiences, but they want the interactions with local people and the environment to be socially responsible, limiting waste and ensuring economic benefit to the Vietnamese people. Authors’ wonder is how a small- size business as Footprint runs their ecotourism based business profitably and responsibly at the same time. That’s the urge to the decision of choosing this topic: “Footprint Travel Company’s business activity analysis” 1.2. Research objective 2 1.2.1. General objectives - Study about organizational structure of a partnership travel agency and analyze its business activities 1.2.2. Specific objectives - Study about organizational structure of Footprint and how each department in the company functions - Analyze Footprint’s business activities about how they allocate their resources which are human and finance - Evaluate financial performance of Footprint based on three-years basis - Assess Footprint’s operation through their using of resources - Comment and recommend to Footprint’s development - Proposal to the authorities 1.3. Object and scope of research 1.3.1. Object of research - Business activities of Footprint Travel Company - The outcome and efficiency of Footprint’s business activities - Factors driving the outcome and efficiency of Footprint’s business activities 1.3.2. Scope of research - Content: Business activities of Footprint Travel Company - Date: 27/9 – 9/10/2011 - Scope: Footprint Travel Company 1.4. Methodology - Data collection and statistical analysis + Primary data is information collected by the researcher directly through instruments such as surveys, interviews, focus groups or observation. To do this report, we have used interviews, observation as tools to collect the data. + Secondary data, on the other hand, is basically primary data collected by someone else. Data such as the balance sheet, income statement, Footprint’s history of development, etc, are all secondary data. + Data processing is used to extract the colleted information in forms of figures and tables. - Methodology of analysis + Methodology of descriptive statistics is used to describe what the data shows, for instance, reading a balance sheet and income statement to understand what those numbers showed on the balance sheet and income statement imply about the company’s situation. + Methodology of comparison is a method to compare the data in different years. By doing that, we will have a clearer understanding of how the company has done as the year passed. 3 + Expert method is also used in a way of collecting expert’s opinions and then building an estimation based on weighted averaging. PART II BUSINESS DESCRIPTION 2.1. History of development Table 2.1: Overview of Footprint Vietnam Travel 4 [...]... applications 3 Footprint Vietnam Travel http://www.footprintsvietnam.com/ 4 Vietnam National Administration of Tourism http://www.vietnamtourism.com/ 5 Responsible Travel Club of Vietnam http://www.rtcvietnam.org/ 6 Definitions of accounting and functions of balance sheet 7 Breaking down the balance sheet From: http://www.investopedia.com/articles/basics/06/balancesheet.asp#axzz1cGqO5Ag9 8 Vietnam Customs... the inflation rate of Vietnam was 19.89% but it was only 8.9% in 2009 and 11.75% in 2010 (source by The State Bank of Vietnam) High inflation rate brings about high production costs and devaluation of Vietnamese Dong Thus, cost of goods sold in 2008 was 3.3% higher than in 2009 + The exchange rate of Dollars to Vietnam Dong was overall increased in 3 years Because main customer of Footprint is foreigners... the stakeholders, especially profit The task is to generate recurring income, increase the value of the business, and secure the income and value of the business In the case of Footprint, both manager 1 and manager 2 directly do the operation without any other employee In short, Footprint has all required functions for the run of a partnership company However, the tasks of a certain job are unclearly... Footprint Vietnam Travel has run a profitable business with a growth percent of profit Let’s look at the Income Statement of Footprint and see how well did they do in 3 years 2008, 2009, 2010 Table 3.1: Footprint s income statement in 3 years Unit: VND Year Content 2008 2009 15 2010 Compare 09/08 10/09 Avera (%) (%) ge 1 Revenue 2 Cost of goods sold 3 Profit before tax 4 Tax 5 Profit after tax 15,540,000,000... Thanh) involve in managing the company, with the capital of 120 millions VND Profit divided equally for each shareholders, 25% per person The business field of the company is providing the specialist custom-made Vietnam tour and Vietnam travel packages Footprint provides guests with safe, high-quality travel and adventure with a healthy dose of fun Footprintters see themselves as the bridge between host... revenue occurred mainly because of the number of international visitors to Vietnam for tourism purpose increased rapidly in 2010 The table below which is the tourism statistic of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism will show you a clearer understanding of how many tourists had come to Vietnam in 3 years from 2008 to 2010: Table 3.2: International visitors to Vietnam in 3 year 2008, 2009 and... Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO), there were more tourists visited Vietnam in 2008 than in 2009, and tourists to Vietnam the most in 2010 In 2008, there were 2,631,943 tourists come to Vietnam but that number dropped substantially to 2,226,440, representing a 14.8% decrease of tourists That’s the reason why 2009’s revenue was lower than 2008’s On the other hand, in 2010, the number of tourists to Vietnam. .. tour coming In Footprint, due to the average of 20 to 25 tours per month, the sales also do the tasks of product department under the supervising and supporting of manager 2 Marketing is a complicated and wide kind of term In fact, a marketer in Footprint needs to determine what kind of tour and which destination may be of interest to customers, targeted markets, price, sale techniques, business communication... productivity of the company - To evaluate employee productivity, we calculate Revenue per Employee which measures the average revenue generated by each employee of the company Revenue per Employee = Total Revenue / Average number of Employees - Profit per Employee: measures the average profit generated by each employee of the company Profit per Employee = Profit before tax / Average number of Employees...Name Footprint Vietnam Travel Location 4th floor, number 10A1 Ly Nam De Street, Hanoi Date of business May 2001 Phone number (84-4) 933 2844 Fax number (84-4) 933 2855 Website http://www .footprint. vn Email footprint@ hn.vnn.vn Business field Custom-made Vietnam tour and Vietnam travel packages Mission and vision - Mission: focusing on responsible . i HANOI UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTURE FACULTY OF ACCOUNTING AND BUSINESS MANAGEMENT  INTERNSHIP PROJECT REPORT STAGE 1 PROJECT TITLE: GENERALS OF FOOTPRINT VIETNAM TRAVEL’S BUSINESS OPREATION Student. i TABLE OF CONTENTS ii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Overview of Footprint Vietnam Travel 4 Table 2.2: Human resources of Footprint Vietnam Travel in 3 years 10 Table 2.3: Balance sheet of Footprint. lift of the giant bird named tourism. For this reason, authors have applied to intern in Footprint Vietnam Travel Company and chose this topic Generals of Footprint Vietnam Travel’s business