Destination Vietnam

The group of students proudly show off their banh mi loaves of bread outside Nha Trang restaurant.

Within the Enactus framework, Jared Doty, MBA, ’99, Director of the Sandage Center for the Study of Free Enterprise and Entrepreneurship, is always scoping out new projects for his students. The deliverables need to be realistic and doable, allowing students to turn entrepreneurial action into a sustainable difference for communities around the globe. This sometimes means having to decline projects due to geopolitical or infrastructural challenges, but everything fell perfectly into place with a project partner in Vietnam.

Doty was in touch with John Godfrey ’06, Graceland’s newest Alumni Board of Directors President, who has a personal connection to Vietnam through his partner Tammy Nguyen. In their conversations, the idea crystallized to support Tammy’s cousin with one of the many family-run small businesses that make up the tourism landscape there. The cousin hopes to attract U. S. American visitors to a region that is not yet at the top of their travel list — and a destination marketing project was born.

“This was a true one-of-a-kind, immersive experience! The opportunities we had, especially with Nha Trang University, were unlike anything I’ve ever done. The people we met and places we went were true learning experiences I’ll never forget.”

ISHBEL WILSON ’23

Against the time restraints of spring break, Tammy’s local knowledge and network made it possible to maximize the 10 days the students were in country and provide a memorable learning experience for both sides. The Graceland project team took on the role of business consultants, first going through the tourist experience first-hand, then translating that experience into a target market analysis, and finally collaborating with the client on tailored marketing and promotion toward future customers.

From the bustling urban centers to the quiet beaches, Vietnam offers welcoming people, stunning scenery and an overall great travel deal for the dollar, but it is not easy to get to or navigate once you get there. Initial information is rather generic and superficial, featuring pretty stock photos but lacking original and specific content needed to plan and execute a trip.

To make Vietnam more accessible and help the agency cater to customer needs, the students looked at aspects such as mobility and transportation, safety, culinary delights and dietary options, hotel and public facilities, prices and modes of payment, technology and local app usage, and social conventions. They learned the intricacies of intercultural communication and how to adapt to the steady stream of motorbikes to safely cross the road, located photo opportunities, pinpointed good restaurants and restrooms, and identified historical sites that would appeal to one type of traveler or adventure activities to another type of traveler. All to collect the little pieces of the Destination Vietnam story they will now be telling with the project partner, who maybe someday will welcome you there!