CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

In recent years, the demand for young people to travel, especially go backpacking is extremely high. In a backpacking tour, young people enjoy their life with freedom, go wherever, whenever and do whatever they want to. They travel to the wilderness, go climbing, exploring, experiencing nature on their own. However, backpacking tourism also has some drawbacks; ones inexperience may cause some serious troubles. Recently, the media has recorded some tragic accidents of groups of young people going on backpacking tour due to lack of experience and carelessness. According to our survey on university students in HCMC, young people are incredibly excited in a backpacking tour but they would rarely go on their own. In the survey, 91% of the people answered they would like to go on a backpacking trip; however, up to 60% have already had themselves in a trip before. This implies the huge demand for backpacking trip at present and in the future. The explanationsfor this are because young people do not have enough time and money,or their parents would not allow them. More important, it is because of their shortage of experience in preparing before and during the trip, shortage of methods of transportation, equipment and the awareness of the risks they may have to deal with. From the current situation of backpacking tourism, we have made our decision to set up a business that would provide support for customers to overcome those barriers before going on a backpacking trip. [Company name] would lend our aid to those who are willing to go but do not have enough experience, equipment or skills. We provide not only the service to train and teach our customers with basic skills to survive in the wilderness but also various helpful and valuable experiences and advices to get our customers ready before starting their trips.

The purpose of our study is to provide our customers, which are young and inexperienced people with high willing to go backpacking, with opportunities and chances to travel with safety and as lowest risk as possible. About [Company name], as a newly started company with lacks of financial strengths, we would like to propose this business idea to ask for financial support from investors and any other concerned parties that feel interested in this exciting prospect. After all, the demand of young people for backpacking tourism is high but the barriers are also high. They have to face with inexperience, lack of equipment, plenty of risks and last but not least, money. In order to help our customers to overcome those constraints, we have already conduct a survey to gather information to have a close picture of the demands and trends of young people in backpacking tourism and further is to help and assist them in solving those restrictions. In our research, we only focused on young students from 18 to 25 years old, which are currently studying in universities in HCMC, therefore the scope of the survey is also small, not yet expanded to other targets such as white-collar or blue-collar workers.

CHAPTER II: COMPANY INFORMATION

Products

Skill-training classes: physical training, survival skills, first-aid skills. Team-building tours for classes participants

Vision

Number 1 in training skills for young people. Qualified and high standard trainers in training skills and experiences in backpacking.

Mission

Realizing the dream of Backpacking for young people. Train most necessary skills for young generation. Serve customersin friendly and enthusiastic ways. Bring young generation together to share their own passion with backpacking.

Goals

Main company office located in District 3 in Ho Chi Minh City. After 2 years, expand our company office to some other provinces with high demands for skills training.

After 3 years, expand our business by openingthree more supporting skills class, and stores of supporting equipment for backpacking: tent, sleeping bag, bike repairingtools, first-aid bag, rope, map, glasses, gloves, etc.

At first, we have to build and maintain good relationships with universities in HCMC, so that we can build the relationship with their students our target segmentation.

CHAPTER III: LITERATURE REVIEW

In the last three years, people have increased the tendency to go away from which they live and they call backpacking. The Internet community and the press are used to using this word to say about a group of people who are active and ready to go. There are several arguments on a lot oftourism forumsthat talk about what is backpacking? When people get bored with prepared plans, convenience resorts, frustrated with modern life in big cities, or repeated daily works; they will turn their ways to backpacking. People go to any places they could, even it might take a lot of time and money just to enjoy the freedom, the natural beauty of landscapes and sites. In this kind of journey, there are no directions, no time-limitation, just go as far as possible to release their mind. Considerits nature,

backpacking is not only defined as travelling, but also imply the meaning of it. Backpacking means that people choose to travel on their holidays, carry their equipment and clothes in a backpack (Oxford, 2013) and choose their own vehicle to travel between places. More important, they can go whenever they want. At that time, people have more chances to explore new places, even those are not determined on the map, or no tourist company has ever come there before. To sum up, backpacking is to go whenever, wherever you want. Backpacking helps backpackers enjoy their wonderful life, find out the beauty of the country with different cultures, and people around them. Furthermore, people can understand themselves, be stronger, and be self-independent through this journey. Therefore, inside powers can be awaken,particularly, having responsibility on their own existence, becoming braver, more intelligent, and more active in the right time. Backpackers will have the opportunities to get rid of their old, inactive personalities in old days and to overcome obstacles they face in daily life thanks to soft skills they learned from backpacking experiences. Another advantage of backpacking is that people can change their way of thinking, their belief to find the reasons to live and challenge themselves. Lastly, while discovering new things, backpackers can participate in charitable activities by raising funds, helping old people, collecting books, clothesfor poor children and people they meet on their journey. Sharing is a meaningful way to make them broaden their knowledge and understanding more feelings from people on the trip. On the other hand, backpacking still existssome few disadvantages. First of all, there are a small number of young people with unhappy family, stressful life; they think that backpacking is just a game. They come to one place, take photos to show with their friends and never come back that place again,and that is not the message of backpacking. Moreover, dangerous roads are ideal places for bandits to cause harm to backpackers. Those

can bring harms to their lives such as accidents, damages, bad weather, etc. Therefore, they have to prepare carefully in any emergency cases and unexpected situation. Not only on the roads, but also at the places they visit. Besides, the border is one of the most dangerous places since people are attracted by the wonderful view while criminals often take advantages of this opportunity to trap tourists for smuggling. Furthermore, camping on the roads is one of the favorite activities of backpackers,they can cook, drink, and sing for all night long. However, sometimes they forget to clean the garbage they left after the party and this is a bad point of backpacking. All professional backpackers know that culture shock is one of the restrictions of a trip. Whenever setting foot on a new place, they are very careful with the culture and lifestyle of native people because each region has its own values and norms and people have to accept it. To be more specific, when a student from a rural moves on a big city, he will undergo severalsurprised and strange feelings andhas to get used tothe new life gradually through his and other experiences to grow up and think differently and so do backpackers. To prepare for new backpackers that have no experiences in real life, the organization or leader is required to set up a tour in advance to help them practice the skills they have learned from training classes, so they cangenerally imagine about the trip they are going to participate.

CHAPTER IV: DISCUSSION

1. Trend and Demand Nowadays, Vietnamese young people are encouraged to live free and energetic lives, they are more excited in new trends of the daily life. Backpacking tourism is becoming more and more popular these days, young people are inspired by others stories about backpacking. Xach balo len va di written by Huyen Chip is a common example in the energetic way of

living of young people these day. They are willing and ready to take their backpack and start their own trips, enjoy the beauty of nature, of the wilderness and meeting new people. But how would they suppose to manage if they have never had a trip before, where would they get the experiences since reading online sources is never enough. In our current market, most of all tourism agencies only provide their customers with well-organized trips, which do not really fit the travelling needs and demands of young adults. They do not want to do something that is fixed, or restrictive such as those tours, they want to expand themselves, do whatever they want, go wherever they like, enjoy something that they have never expereinced before.

2. Target customers Everyone loves travelling, especially young people. In our survey, 91% of the people answered that they really love backpacking tourism and 60% said that they still not have the right opportunities to go due to inexperience and lack of skills and equipment. Therefore, our target customer is the young generation between 18 and 25 years old with the great desire to go backpacking travel but do not have much money and experiences on backpack traveling. Young people tend to choose backpacking for their holidays because of the independence and reasonable cost. Although they have good health condition and high spirits for backpacks travel, they still do not have much experiences to face with some unexpected problems and drawbacks of backpacks travel. Therefore, we decided to open a training skillcourse for young people who still have time for the preparation before the trip.

3. Channels

Social Networks ( Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Forum,..) is the main communication channel for our company. Besides that, we would build our own website to provide helpful information and activities of our company to assist our customers in approaching our services. Moreover, the interaction between our company and Offices of Student Affairs of other universities is one of the most important ways for our communication channel andwe could attract more attention from their students from this way.

4. SWOT Analysis 1/ Strengths: Our company could be set up based on these following strengths:

The well-skilled and trained trainers: all of our trainers have deep knowledge and experience about Backpacking field. Moreover, they are trained very well in teaching skill, how to convey the experience and knowledge, skills in an understandable way.

The connections between us and the other backpacking clubs, forums would benefit us by creating networks of people who love backpacking tourism, thus, our trainees would have more chances to meet and share the love of backpacking with other people.

Wide range of information channels: although our business have just set up, we have various information channels to connect with our potential customers (Facebook, Zing Me, Twitter, forum,) and the connections with the Offices Student Affairs of various universities in HCMC. Thanks to those powerful

information channels, it is expected that we can easily spread out our programs, service and catch the customers.

2/ Weaknesses:

Price: the price of a course is relatively high (2 millions). Because most of our customersare students or in the age from 18 25, who might have not been fully financial independent yet. Thus,that price level would be quite highfor them to afford.

Training time: The training time is expectedto be very short (2-4 weeks) but the period of each class is ensured the quality is very huge. Thus, we have to design a very careful and logicalprogram.

Facilities: In the early stage of setting up, we would be lack of facilities. We have to hire some of essential facilities so the customers might not be satisfied.

3/ Opportunities:

High demand for backpacking tourism: Young people with dynamic and explorative characteristic are now interested in this new kind of travelling - backpacking. More than 91% percent of young people in the survey said that they will start going on a backpacking trip soon in the next one or two years. That is an remarkably large number of potential customers for us to serve.

New field: Although this kind of business is quite new and hard to get customer, that risk for us is also an opportunity for us to take. Because it is new, there will be less competitors and we would have more opportunities toacquire more customers.

High demand of soft- skill training: Not only high demand for backpacks travel, young people and even companies, families, schools also have high demand on

soft skill (essential living skill) such as first aid skill, martial art skill, to protect themselves against the unexpected tragedies.

4/ Threats:

Reputation:the business is quite new in Vietnam. It is hard for the customer to trust our business quality and spend money for our services.

Economic downturn: Due to the high inflation and downturn of the economy, people are now very highly considering about their spendings. Hence, they would cut down as much as possible any unnecessary spendings or needswhich might include travelling.

SWOT Table STRENGTHS

WEAKNESSES

Well-skilled and experienced trainers The link with the other backpacking club Wide range channels

Price Training time Facilities

OPPORTUNITIES

THREATS

High demand New trend in young people New field

Reputation Economic downturn

5. Sample products a. Skill training classes Contents Time length Estimated number of participants Physical training, survival, first-aid skills 1 month 8-10

Number of trainers

Physical training:the instructors will focus on training and improving the physical conditions of participants in the shortest possible amount of time. During the month, this class will take place of 3 days per week (Mon-Wed-Fri or Tue-Thu-Sat). The contents include martial arts, climbing skills, and athletic skills, all are meant to increase the stamina, strength and to provide the participants with the best health conditions before going on the backpacking trip.

Survival skills:in this type of class, our trainers will introduce some unexpected situations that backpackers might face during the trip, explain and provide guidelines for participants to reach the best-possible solutions. We also teach the participants some vital skills to survive in the wilderness, such as map-reading skill, navigational skill or how to light a fire, how to avoid wild animals, how to prepare a small meal, etc. This kind of class will take place on Sunday.

First-aid skills:this class will teach the participants the ability to give simple medical treatments to some minor wounds and pains before an injured one can be taken to hospital. We will hold the first-aid class at the last weekend of the course.

Finally, after the 1-month class, there would be: + 1 hour/session x 3 sessions/week x 4 weeks = 12 hours for physical training + 2 hours/session x 1 session/week x 3 weeks = 8 hours for survival skills + 2 hours/session x 1 session/week x 1 weeks = 2 hours for first-aid skills

b. Sample tour

What makes our course interesting and special is a trip at the end of the course. This trip will be hold with the hope to give learners a good chance to practice what they have already learned from the course. Thanks to this trip, learners will actually experience situations in which there are danger and difficulties. In order to overcome the challenges, they have to calmly solve any kinds of possible problems. The trip will aim at such places as islands, forests or beaches. Some typical places which are specially focused can be listed as Sac forest in Can Gio, Xeo Quyt Melaleuca forest, Phu Quoc island, U Minh mangrove forest, Nam Cat Tien forest, Vung Tau beach, etc. The criteria for those places to be chosen are their wildness, isolation and good conditions for practicing survival skills. Additionally, it is true that by going to such places as Sac forest, Xeo Quyt forest and Phu Quoc island, learners can also learn much about History knowledges and actually get the feelings of the difficult lives of Vietnamese soliders in war. It is expected that learners on the trip will get the precious chance to learn and experience a lot. From the very beginning, places which are near Ho Chi Minh City will take priority because of less travel costs required. Bases on the existing condition of the place, the organization team will also create many obstacles to challenge learners. Taking Sac forest as an example, it would be interesting to have some organization team members pretend to be bandit and make some usual traps in forest like animal traps of poachers. The obstacles will be carefully considered and set up at first before any trip launches. There would be a team of ten employees of our companies who will take responsibilities of holding the trip. The team will include one sport teacher, one teacher of situation handling class and eight experienced backpackers. Those will be in main charges of creating challenges, checking learners abilities, skills and ensuring safety of learners. Not only that, it is necessary to have some enthusiast young volunteers for helping the effectiveness of the trip. Our attempt is to find five volunteers with good skills, especially

from Youth Unions or Student Associations of universities in Ho Chi Minh City. These volunteers will have a free trip, which means a free chance to practice their own survival skills. Their responsibilities will be being with learners and helping learners in cases. It is planned that 25 learners will participate in the trip and be divided into five groups. Therefore, in each group, there will be five participants with one skillful volunteer. Before the trip, a small meeting is required so that organization team can give clear instructions to participants in terms of what should be prepared. If possible, the trip will be hold as a real competition among attending groups. To be specific, taking trip to Nam Cat Tien forest as an example, it would be made to become a struggling race for the final precious treasure. Participating groups will have to unite and make strong effort to overcome all challenges, which are orientation and finding ways in forest, avoiding being attacked by animals, preparing small meals and sleeping hut and doing puzzles for hints to get to the treasure. In order to challenge learners even more, organization team will set up several traps in forest before hand. Some of them might pretend as thieves, ghost or dangerous ethnic villagers to make participants frightened. However, their main part is still closely and secretly following each group to make sure that they are safe and making evaluation of each participants attempt, abilities and skills. After the trip, base on the learners performace, they will be graded and considered to have a certificate of well completing the course. Hopefully, these trips will actually help learners to learn and experience and have unforgettable memmories. The success of those trips will support the courses success and even improve the reputation of our companies as a whole. For that reason, the trips at the end of the course are expected with hope and belief by not only the learners but also employees of our companies.