A Vatican Dining App: Overview, Analysis, and Business Proposal

Nguyen Minh Tuan

Foreign Trade University, Ha Noi

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Introduction
The Vatican City is the smallest country in the world, measuring with an area of just 44 arces. In
other words, the city is 120 times smaller than Manhattan’s island. This research paper focuses
on the SWOT analysis and the business proposal for the current state of the Vatican City. The
paper consists of five main parts: Introduction, Overview, Popular Attractions, SWOT Analysis
and Business Proposal: A Dining App. The data and information in this paper is used for the
purpose of supporting the main business idea.

Overview of Vatican City

Vatican City or Holy See lies within the city of Rome, Italy. The history of the city dates back to
20th century. After many years of power struggles between the pope and the political leaders of
Italy over who could claim supreme influence in this region of Rome, Benito Mussolini and Pope
Pius XI agreed to the Lateran treaty on February 11, 1929. This event created the independent
state of Vatican City for the Catholic Church in exchange for the pope’s recognition of the
Kingdom of Italy.

At present, the population of Vatican City is around one thousand people, of which only about
850 are Italian and Swiss residents (2014). Vatican’s name comes from the Vatican Hill in
Rome, around its territory there is a wall that is more than three thousand feet long. In addition,
Vatican City was written in the UNESCO World Heritage List (1984).

Popular Attractions
The Vatican City is famous for its tourists attraction. Despite being the smallest city in the world,
the city has a great number of place for sightseeing. Three must-see sights within the wall are St.
Peter's Basilica, the Sistine Chapel and the Vatican Palace. St. Peter’s Basilica was built between
the 16th and 18th centuries. The church stands tall, measured at 185 meters in length and 46
meters in height. Residents and visitors often flock to St. Peter’s Basilica during religious
holidays when the pope performs special masses at the church.

Another famous tourist attraction is the Sistine Chapel. Constructed by Pope Sixtus IV in 1473-
1484, the Sistine Chapel is a rectangular hall that belongs to the Pope's domestic chapel and used
for special occasions. The chapel has one special trait that the ceiling and altar painted as a result
of Michelangelo’s ambitious idea. Also, the walls frescoes were painted by other Renaissance
greats. Its dramatic presentation and artistic rank the Sistine Chapel as one of the world’s most
important artistic treasures.

SWOT Analysis
The following table illustrates the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the Vatican
City. From this SWOT analysis, the business proposal was created to serve the purpose of
utilizing the strengths and opportunities related to the city’s interests.
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Strengths
Brand name (the Vatican brand name
distinguishes them from other competitors)
Customer loyalty
Good barriers of market entry to prevent other
competitors
Weaknesses
Cost structure (Vatican government does not
have proper cost structure)
Restaurants only serve Italy food.
Bad media (the country has a small range of
media covering, they lack interactions).
Brand portfolio

Opportunities Threats
Financial improvement Growing competition and lower profitability
The pope’s reputation Increasing costs
Global market Financial capacity is limited
Demand for the economy is rising steadily Over populated
New products and services are being made.
Tourist attractions

Business Proposal: A Vatican Dining App

A Vatican Dining App is an app that serves the purpose of finding and recommending the best
culinary restaurant at your nearest place for the best dining experience. The app offers some of
the best reviews from both experts and past visitors for restaurants in a certain area.

How it operates
The app uses Artificial Intelligence (AI), a kind of intelligence that is exhibited by virtual
machines. In science, the field refers to the fact that any device use AI can inspect its
environment and maximize the success of the course of actions. In Vatican Dining App, the AI
will prove useful when users interact with app by chatting to them with its natural language
functionality. Through the users’ eating preferences, the app can suggests the most appropriate
food, as well as the restaurant nearby with that food recommendation.

Users can ask things such as ‘What’s good on the menu’, ‘What’s the atmosphere going to be?’,
and ‘Can I take a date?’. The app will respond through both voice chat and text chat using the
users language. There are 100+ language in the app’s library so users will have no difficulty of
understanding what the apps idea is expressing.

Pricing
Vatican Dining App is a free app, available on both IOS and Android in all versions. For further
reviews, rankings and experts recommendation, the users can try the subscription fee goes by
$4.99 per 6 months. This is not mandatory and totally at users own discretion.

Menus
Vatican City is famous for its Rome and Italy cuisine. It regularly features on dining restaurants
the most delicious food, which includes: pastas, pizzas, risottos, salads, tiramisu, etc. Nowadays,
the restaurants here at Vatican City also serve the visitors many of their national famous dishes.
For this main reason, all the information and best food recommendations will be updated to the
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restaurants surrounding Vatican City, as well as the apps library so users can know what the
trend is at the present.

Conclusion
The Vatican City is a wonderful place as it is occupied by various kinds of people and
entertainment and attractions. The smallest country in the world has a lot of tourist attractions for
visitors all over the world. The addition of A Dining App can attract visitors from neighboring
cities to come, enjoy and have the best experience will sight-seeing the country. After all, it is an
app that unites all for a delicious yet luxurious meal regardless of people’s differences.