Marketing of Vietnam Airlines
Marketing of Vietnam Airlines
Marketing of Vietnam Airlines
Product Strategy
Product is the most crucial element, if not want to say it is the first and foremost P
that VNA must care about setting up its marketing strategy because other Ps has to fit
the Product. Air service is a special industry that produces both products and services.
When people buy a ticket to any place in the world a product, they also purchase
other services that accompanied with that ticket. In the context of fierce competition
from other nations VNA has to offer right products which are typical and best satisfy
its customers.
In general, the major product of VNA is passenger. The core products inclue fight
routes, avaible seats, etc. The secondary products include ground service and in-flight
service in which the ground service is tickets revervations, check-in, etc and in-flight
is the provision of beverage, meals and entertainment facilities, children-travel-alone
care during the flight. VNA has been upgrading and diversifying the services such as
providing traditional food which is highly appreciated by foreigners. VNA is building
a standardized service system to improve the service quality from booking to
providing special meal on demand.
Before the flight:
Booking: VNA has been joining the global booking system Gabriel II since
1991. In November, 2006 VNA will launch its new service of issuing e-tickets
for the air route from Hanoi to HCM City. That means passengers only need to
provide their IDs or passports to check in after they make electronic bookings
with the airlines. Credit card holders can make the payment for their air tickets
through the Internet. Then they will receive an email which confirms the
booking and payment aswell as includes necessary information about the
flight. The accuracy, promptness and convenience of booking system will
always make the passengers in domestic and foreign nations as well satisfy.
Booking office
Buses: VNA has the buses to take the customers directly from the Center to
the Airport
Control and automatic check-in system: This system has been installed in
almost all airports in Vietnam. This will save much time for passengers and
ensure security requirements.
In-flight
In recent years, VNA incessantly improve its service quality to meet the higher and
higher passengers demand. Passengers are well served by all the Stewards.
Stewards
Stewards play a key role remainging regular customers and attracting potential
customers. VNA female flight for business class wear yellow ao dai, whereas their
colleagues for economy class wear the blue one. And male attendants wear white
shirts with a lotus motif. They speak Vietnamese, English, and at least one other Asian
language, depending on the flight. A traditional of hospitality and professional among
VNA airport staff, particulary VNA flight attendants, has continued to make a stellar
impression on valued customers. Along with time, everything change, but only the
tradition of hospitality will remain the same- a constant trademark of VNA, and the
guideline to all VNA business interactions
767 is also equipped with an overhead TV with 3-6 film channels, and 9 music
channels according to a fixed calendar.
Meal:
Food quality has improvin clearly from time to time. VNA serves meals and beveages
on board its international and domestic flights. Passengers with special dietary
requirements should request special meals when booking the flight, or at least 24
hours before departure.
focusing on the minimum required services and deploying technology such as online
booking, e-ticketing, the airline can lower operating costs and then reduce prices to
make air travel more affordable. This also hepls VNA to fulfill its obligation as an
frastructure service. The current duopoly system will prevent the airline from any
price war.
Despite being a secondary target, business segments (domestic and international) are
often big spender and not price-conscious as their travels are reimbursed by their
companies. Thus medium price, together with medium quality as dicussed in service
product tacties, will offer the basis medium value pricing strategy. Many world
class carriers such as Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Air France, etc which is
widely known for differentiation advantage, however pursue a focused differentiation
strategy in their Vietnam niche by offerig limites differentiated service on routes
from or to Vietnam. A key advantage of VNA versus its competitors on the
international segment is the link with domestic network.
Currently VNA follows its competitors pricing practice of varyig prices on
international routes according to seasonality. However, one-tier pricing strategy is
used in the domestic market regardless of seasons, time of travel It is suggested that
VNA introduces pricing flexibility in the domestic market in order to better manage
demand and supply an optimize the total yield. Low price may be offered in periods
or times of low demand to encourage passengers to travel, while higher margin can be
carned during peak season. Under the flexible pricing system, the airline needs to
develop appropriate restrictions such as advanced booking,re-scheduling,and
extended stay this would help to discourage the business travelers to travel on
cheaply fares so that the airline can ensure that as much capacity as possible is used
by the most profitable segments. The company can communicate fare information via
its website. Marketing division needs to work with Operations division to introduce
yield managament which is to obtain the best possible yeild over tiem from each
available unit of capacity and return from some perishable capacity units.
Furthermore, holiday packages that VNA develops in cooperation with partners can
use a bundling pricing strategy to promote both VNA services and Vietnam tourism.