Tourism and Travel System Design and Verification

Question: Describe about the Report for Tourism and Travel of System Design and Verification. Answer: Introduction The purpose of this assignment is to develop an application for tourists in Vietnam. The hospitality industry is growing massively in this country. Nowadays, tourists are facing massive issues with misleading information by the local people (Mowforth and Munt 2015). Moreover, local businesses are taking advantage of their low knowledge in the Vietnamese market, and this is an unethical behavior. This assignment will investigate this issue closely and apart from that, it will suggest a cohesive solution to the problem. The application software designed for this issue will be known as Welcome Vietnam. Identified problem In Vietnam, tourists face difficulties while communicating with the local people and vendors. Native people of this county do not understand English and therefore, tourists face a language barrier while communicating with people. Apart from that, the local vendors of this country misguide the visitors in order to increase their profit (Mai and Smith 2015). The most important issue that visitors faced is the transport issue. Public transport in this country is not much accessible. Local people use their personal vehicles to travel within the city (Horner and Swarbrooke 2016). Thus, tourists face enormous difficulties when it comes to traveling within the city. In addition to the travelling inconveniences, they also face problems regarding finding their preferred food stores. On the top of it, most of the restaurants do not have any fixed rate card and this in turn increases their expenses. Vietnam is a repeat tourism destination and therefore, it becomes the most attractive tourist destination for international and domestic tourists. However, the increasing trend of cheating faced by international tourists is harming the market environment (Kusakabe et al. 2015). There are different tourist attractions in this destination such as Cu Chi tunnels, Hoan Kiem Lake and War Remnants Museum. Apart from that, heritage places sea beaches, high quality resorts and food are the main attractions of this destination. Moreover, tourists often come across challenges in terms of lack of knowledge regarding travel routes and actual market rates (Nguyen 2016). However, challenges for the local tourists are lower in construct with international tourists, because international tourists face linguistic barrier as well. Proposed solution In order to help the local and international tourist of Vietnam, it would be effective to develop an application including efficient features that can address these particular issues. For example, an application that can be a tour guide for the people. Here, the proposed solution is Welcome Vietnam. This application would greet international and domestic tourists and would help them throughout their journey. The application can be downloaded onto tablets, laptops and mobile phones. The application will be compatible with different software platforms like Android and iOS (Ghobadi 2015). It will make sure that this strategy is benefiting every tourist in Vietnam. The goal of developing this application is to support the tourists with adequate information regarding rode direction, restaurant location and other details regarding local vendors and their current charges. Additionally, this application will assist the visitors with information regarding best places in Vietnam. For example, it will show details regarding the authentic restaurants and shopping destination. The application will be connected with Google Map and therefore, finding locations will never be a challenge for the visitors (McCann and McCloskey 2015). Additionally, tourists will be assisted with a local toll free helpline number in order to make their experience hassle free. The support executive of this helpline portal will assist the tourists in different languages such as Russian, Chinese, French and English. In this manner, the language barrier will be eliminated. Following is the pictorial presentation of the proposed solution. Figure 1: Interface of the application (Source: Created by the Author) Implementation In order to implement the solution, it would be effective to develop the software for different operating system platforms. For example, this application will be available for both the iOS and Android users. Thus, this will make the software accessible to a larger section of the tourist population. In order to communicate with the domestic and international tourists, the management will take help of social media website (Liu et al. 2016). It would be beneficial to open a Facebook page for the application in order to reach out to the stakeholders. In this manner, it will be possible to assist the tourists throughout their journey. Apart from that, it will help the users to troubleshoot any technical malfunctions. For example, it is possible that a technical malfunction may occur during the journey. In such a situation, the management will support the users to find out the best possible way in which they can resolve the issue (Gao, Huang and Han 2015). Moreover, it will also help the m anagement to improve the application as per users feedback. There will be a feedback section in the application, which will allow users to write comments. In this manner, it will be possible to adopt continuous innovation. Every user needs to sign up with their email id and phone number. Apart from that, they can connect their social media accounts with the application is order to get access. The application will allow the users to stay logged in even when they are not using the application (Nilsson et al. 2015). It would increase the session duration of the system. In order to protect private information like phone number and email address, this application will also use an end-to-end encryption system. When it comes to the device model, this application will be compatible with a range of Smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops (Alur, Henzinger and Vardi 2015). Geographically, this application would provide adequate information regarding Vietnam. In order to test the application, a real life testing process would be implemented. In this process, developers will release the application in Google Play Store and other application stores. Primarily, the company will encourage local people to download the application for their personal interest. In order to promote the application in the primary stage, the company will adopt rewarding strategy. After releasing the application in market, the management will gather feedbacks through survey processes. Apart from that, the company will allow the users to leave comments regarding the software after using it. After getting the feedbacks, the management will rectify the identified bugs and improve the application for further use. Apart from that, the management will keep updating the software accordingly with the operating system updates. In order to improve the Google Map accessibility, the management will improve the framework and graphical user interface (Trinh and Ryan 2016). In this manner, the application will be tested within two to three months of launching. After that, the application will be available in international market. However, continuous development and improvement will play a major role. Review Process Keeping a track of customer visits and number of time the application has been downloaded, can help in measuring the success of this application. In order to measure the success, the management will incorporate a tool, which would help to count the total number of visits per day. It will help the management to measure the success rate on a daily basis (Tisdell 2016). In this manner, it will be possible to understand whether the success graph is showing a fall or not. Moreover, as the management will also be creating a Facebook page, it would be effective in calculating the number of people following. Thus, by performing this activity for 3 to 6 months the management would be able to understand the success rate of this application. Theoretical Concepts In the technology industry, the market is full of competition. Various corporations are developing application software for almost all software platforms. Therefore, product promotion is becoming the most necessary factor in this sector (Ly and Xiao 2016). The application will assist the tourists regarding a range of aspects such as taxi fares, street food retailers and restaurants. Therefore, it would be important to conduct an effective marketing promotion in order to increase awareness among the stakeholders. Following are the marketing procedures for increasing awareness regarding Welcome Vietnam. Marketing strategies Social media advertisement: The management would promote the newly developed application through social media in order to get positive response. In order to promote the product through social media, the management will create video and banner advertisements (Kusakabe et al. 2015). Banner advertisements will help to share all related features of the application with the viewers. Apart from that, it will also measure the number of viewers through this process. However, under video advertisement, viewers may face difficulties due to low bandwidth (Kropinova, Zaitseva and Moroz 2015). As discussed earlier, management will create a social media page in order to incorporate all the information regarding the application. Through this page, it will be possible to reach to the targeted population within a short span of time. Mobile marketing: The management would implement mobile marketing in order to increase awareness about the newly developed application. In this marketing movement, the management will conduct SMS marketing in order to aware people about the availability of the application (Mowforth and Munt 2015). In the primary stage, SMS marketing will help to promote the application in the domestic market. Therefore, the management will easily conduct the real life testing process. After the competition of this process, the company would encourage the users to give their feedback regarding the difficulties that they are facing. Paid advertisement campaign: In this marketing movement, the management will allow third party vendors to promote the applications through their website. Apart from that, the management will use mobile application tracking software in order to track the number of downloads from the vendors website (Mai and Smith 2015). In this manner, the management will be able to push the product as well as can track the performance at the same time. Moreover, this process is cost effective for the management. Reward for sharing: Nowadays, social sharing is one of the best marketing strategies for mobile applications. In this process, the management will reward the existing user who shares the application with others. This process will help build a social word of mouth marketing process (Horner and Swarbrooke 2016). In order to reward users, the management will provide mobile cash, shopping coupons and other facilities. This process will increase the download frequency in an effective manner. However, some people may remove the application from their system right after being rewarded. It will increase product awareness within short time span. Third Party Promotion: In technology industry, third party marketing is becoming the most effective marketing strategy. Welcome Vietnam will assist the users regarding taxi fares, street food retailers and restaurant (Hildebrandt and Isaac 2015). Therefore, it would be beneficial for the management to promote this application through these sectors. The management would allow the alliances in order to promote the application in primary stage. This marketing movement will be cost effective. Competitive Advantages Nowadays, various technology corporations have developed a range of mobile applications. Therefore, it can be said that there are many substitutes of Welcome Vietnam in the market. However, the management needs to promote the usefulness of this application. This application will be especially designed for the domestic and international tourists in Vietnam. Therefore, this will provide a one-step solution for the potential problems that a tourist can face (Iyer, Dey and Chakraborty 2015). Keeping the current trend in mind, the application will ensure that users can be benefited with a range of assistance such as road direction, navigation towards preferred location, healthy food, safe accommodation and many more. In order to gain competitive advantage, the company would emphasize on the unique features of the application (Nguyen 2016). Building good communication with users will be the key of success for the management. Ethical issues This project could present different ethical issues that a developer can face. The most important ethical constraint is using General Public License. The source codes are copied from the open source and modified accordingly. Therefore, this can be a concern similar to stealing intellectual property, which is ethically wrong (Alur, Henzinger and Vardi 2015). However, due to time constraint the developers need to take the source codes from the public license. The source code is available in public domains and open to all developers. However, the credit of the source code will go to the management due to copyright protection. It is important to reduce the overall organizational cost, as the management needs to maximize their profit. Therefore, it is important for them to use pirated versions software. However, using such unauthenticated software is ethically wrong. Following are the ethical issues that may arise while performing for this project. Storing log files: In order to develop and improve the application continuously, programmers need to obtain the log files from users system. This process however, will take all the personal information from the device unknowingly (Nilsson et al. 2015). Welcome Vietnam will be based on Google Map service and therefore, it will keep a record of the locations that users are visiting. It will help the developers to fix any expected bugs of the software. On the other hand, users may not agree to share their location with any third party (Gao Huang and Han 2015). However, they are doing this unknowingly. It is the most important ethical dilemma that occurs in software development industry. Use of pirated software: Due to budget constraint, pirated software has been used in this project. However, using such software is against business ethics. In order to develop the software, different programming applications have been used (Liu et al. 2016). Buying all these software applications would increase the project cost beyond expectation. Therefore, it was not possible to purchase all the required software. Not addressing bugs: Due to time constraint, it is not possible for the developers to address all the bugs at the primary stage. However, the management commits to deliver error free application to the end users. Through promotion of the application, the management has committed that the application would address all requirements of the users (McCann and McCloskey 2015). However, the application will not error free at primary stage. Therefore, it can be said that it is an ethical constraint for the management to convey manipulated information to the end users at the begging. Using common features of competitors: Nowadays, many software developing corporations are developing software for similar use. In order to reduce design cost, the management has taken the basic idea from the competitors (Ghobadi 2015). However, copying an existing design is an unethical practice. The management has its own programming and concept; but the basic design has been taken from the existing mobile applications. Keeping users information: In order to develop the application, the management needs to keep users private information onto the database. Therefore, the management will be held responsible for keeping the data safe from unauthenticated access. However, due to time and budget constraints, the encryption method is not satisfactory (Gao, Huang and Han 2015). Therefore, it is possible that the data can be accessed by unauthorized agents and this could make user information vulnerable. Lessons learnt After completing this project, I came to know that unethical business activities are putting the tourism industry at risk in Vietnam. When it comes to my personal understanding, it is highly important to understand the root of the problem in order to provide a cohesive solution. I have leant that innovation is the key to success in this technological era. Apart from that, I have learnt that in order to be a software developer, an individual should have a wide knowledge regarding the field for which he or she is working. For example, I was working for the tourism industry and therefore, I had to conduct market research to know how local and international tourists face trouble in Vietnam. This has helped me enhance my knowledge regarding the tourism sector in Vietnam. This will ultimately help me to develop my career in future. In this project, I have researched much about the tourism industry and tourists in Vietnam and this has helped me develop my research capacity over this particular area. During the research, I came to know that language is one of the major barriers for the tourists especially the international tourists in Vietnam. This is because the native people in the country do not understand English. Thus, this leads to great inconvenience faced by the international tourists and the tourist guides while communicating with each other. After conducting the research, I have identified that communication problem often influences people to cheat the tourists in the country. Therefore, this knowledge will help me to develop the software in such a way that can solve this communication barrier between the international tourists and the native people in Vietnam. On the other hand, identification of the problem and analyzing the same helped me improve my analytical skills. Before developing any software, it is essential to identify the actual needs of the software, means the problems that the software needs to solve. Hence, critical analysis of each issue was one of the main sections of my project, which enhanced my analytical expertise. Apart from providing solution to the issues, the tourist guide software that is Welcome Vietnam needs to provide much information to the tourists about Vietnam and each of the tour locations. This has insisted me to gather all information about the country like, the information regarding its food and restaurants, the challenges in transport and the availability of hotels This information has improved my knowledge about Vietnam and now I am better placed when it comes to providing guidance to the tourist when they explore this new locale. It will help to improve the quality of Welcome Vietnam. On the other side, while developing the software that is Welcome Vietnam, I have also researched about the market in the country, where the software will be launched. This particular research has enhanced my knowledge regarding the Vietnam market and the constraints within that market. The identification of the constraints helped me to evaluate each marketing constraint and identifying the best possible solution to remove the constraints. Along with the information regarding Vietnam, I also came to know about the available techniques of marketing to promote the newly developed software in the market. This particular knowledge helped me to enhance my idea and skills in a different domain that is marketing. I gained information regarding the use of social media marketing, mobile marketing and paid advertisement and third party promotions. The knowledge in a different domain like marketing will be very important and useful for developing my career in future. On the other side, during the preparation of this particular project, I have faced several ethical issues and problems that helped me to learn about the tactics to avoid and handle any problematic situation. This learning has improved my level of competency. At the same time, it has improved my confidence level also. Now, I am able to manage difficult situation with more confidence. Apart from that, I can take proper decision in any situation that has ethical dilemma. However, I also came to know that there are some ethical dilemmas, which cannot be solved easily such as usage of pirated software, which is against business ethics. However, due to the cost constraints, I was bound to use the pirated software that created ethical dilemma during the project. Apart from that, this particular project has also educated me regarding time management. The urgency of the project influenced me to complete each task on time. The timely completion of each task helped me to submit the final project within the required time span. This improved time management capacity will definitely help me to complete each task on time in future. Moreover, this particular project has helped me to develop my overall project management capacity and this expertise and knowledge will help to develop projects that are more critical in future. Limitation of work Developing tourist guide software like Welcome Vietnam is a great help to tourists, who visit Vietnam. However, the development of this software was not an easy task. Many limitations created several problems at the time of developing this particular software. The primary limitations of this project were its time and cost limitations. The available time for this project was very short. In that short period it was quite difficult to develop such appropriate software suitable enough to guide the Vietnams tourists in best possible way. Developing the proper software requires in-depth analysis of the different issues of the tourism sector in Vietnam and identification of best solution to solve the issues. However, identification of issues and their solutions cannot be done within a short period. At the same time, cost was another issue of this project. The available money was limited that created difficulties at the time of researching on the tourism sector in Vietnam. Apart from the time and cost constraints, there was another limitation and that was related to the availability of proper and authenticate information. Identifying the authentic information within a short period was very difficult. Conclusion In this project, it has been identified that the tourism sector in Vietnam has several problems and communication is one of them. The inability of the native people to speak and understand English creates communication gap between the local guides and the tourists from different countries. However, Welcome Vietnam will be helpful for the international as well as the domestic tourists. Several marketing channels are available to promote the new software in the market. 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