GROUP REPORT

DEVELOPMENT OF A DATABASE APPLICATION FOR

“VINATEL” HOTEL IN HANOI, VIETNAM

Class: Advanced Accounting 60

Group members: Hoàng Trung Kiên Trịnh Đình Phúc
Lương Đức Minh Nguyễn Vy Anh
Nguyễn Thu Phương Vũ Thị Vân Hà
Trần Minh Hương Hoàng Vân Anh
Nguyễn Như Thành

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 Table of Contents
ABSTRACT....................................................................................................................................3
I. Statement of business problem.................................................................................................4
II. Description of business context...............................................................................................4
1. Introduction Vietnamese accommodation service and Vinatel.....................................................4
1.1 Vietnamese hospitality industry....................................................................................................................4
1.2. Vinatel introduction......................................................................................................................................5

2. Organizational chart........................................................................................................................5
3. Core business process.......................................................................................................................6
4. Reasons for topic selection...............................................................................................................6
5. Expectation from the project...........................................................................................................7
III. Investigate the real world to select business problems........................................................7
1. Interview...........................................................................................................................................7
2. Document study................................................................................................................................9
IV. System analysis......................................................................................................................10
1. Business Function Diagram...........................................................................................................11
2. Entity - Relationship Diagram.......................................................................................................12
2.1 Basic concepts of Entity-Relationship.........................................................................................................12
2.2 Entity-Relationship Diagram analysis.........................................................................................................13
2.3 Data structure diagram.................................................................................................................................14

V. Steps to create the database design model on Microsoft Access.........................................15

1. Data Tables.....................................................................................................................................15
2. Data Queries...................................................................................................................................17
3. Data Form.......................................................................................................................................18
4. Data Report.....................................................................................................................................20
VI. Instruction for common users and managers.....................................................................23
1. Common users................................................................................................................................23
2. Managers.........................................................................................................................................25

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CONCLUSION............................................................................................................................27

ABSTRACT

Nowadays, with the fast development of tourism, the hospitality industry has become a
familiar industry in our society. With traveling getting cheaper and easier, anyone can
now be a traveler. And that, open the door of potential to small business like ours Vinatel.
Still, however small or big, an entrepreneur always has to stand among decisions. In
order to support their choices, our project “Development of a database management
system application for Vinatel aimed to utilize the use of computer science to reduce the
paper-work, sort out the data, and provide a clear look into the hotel performance. Each
sale of room or service will be record and condense into different reports for us to come
up with optimal ways to run the business now, and in the future.
The project “Development of a database application for Vinatel in Hanoi, Vietnam”
proposes turns out to be a useful tool for Vinatel’s managers. We build this database
application to record booking order or purchasing. Moreover, it can immediately check
the availability of rooms in the hotel. It simplifies the task and reduces the time of
controlling each available room or sale records. Database management system could
generate many types of reports from these tables. For the future, the manager will
correctly decide which type of rooms need to improve or type of services should be
deleted.
Because of the short time frame and limited knowledge in the technology field, our
research and information system have some limitations. We are looking forward to
receiving feedbacks from our instructor for the improvement in the future project.

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I. Statement of business problem

“DEVELOPMENT OF A DATABASE APPLICATION FOR “VINATEL” HOTEL

IN HANOI, VIETNAM”

Current situation of traditional hotel:

With the development of travelling industry, the demand for hotel has increased as a
result. To meet this requirement, many hotels have digitalized the operating systems as
following step:
- Getting reservation from customers: create order form, confirm order, receive
reservations from customers payment.
- Renting rooms: classify rooms into categories.
- Supplying service: list all of the service that hotel supplies.
- Process of booking: Direct meeting, phone calls and social media.
- Payment method: cash, credit card.

However, this type of business is facing some problems:

- Limited source of customers.
- It is hard to get the insights of customers in categories: price range, room type.
- It is time-consuming when checking available room at a large hotel.
- It is not cost-saving for managers to understand the report from each department.

As a result, operating performance could be negatively affected. From this situation,

every hotel’s owners need to find a new way of controlling the activities of their business
to catch up with the quick development of hospitality industry. So, we highly recommend
using technology in managing business core process and minimize the administrative
expenses. A management information system can help to solve the problem. That is why
we create this database application for Vinatel.

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II. Description of business context
1. Introduction Vietnamese accommodation service and Vinatel

1.1 Vietnamese hospitality industry

With World Travel Awards 2018 Vietnam as Asia’s leading destination, and the United
Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) ranked Vietnam as the third fastest-
growing tourist destination in the world, Vietnam has been experiencing a boom in both
domestic and international tourism over the past decade. The number of domestic
tourist number has increased from 20.5 million in 2008 to 80 million in 2018 and the
international tourist arrivals to Vietnam has almost quadrupled to 15.5 million in 2018
from 4.2 million in 2008. There is a significant growth in international visitors in the
past 3 years to the region, with an average of around 9% per annum between 2008 to
2015 to an average of 25% between 2016 and 2018. Domestic tourism in Vietnam is
also significantly greater in volume than inbound tourism from abroad. This has
experienced a similar increase in the number of domestic trips owing to factors like
Vietnam’s rapidly growing middle class, and their desire to travel, improving the
affordability of air transport amidst the growth of low-cost domestic air carriers among
others. Vietnam managed to record doubled amounts of revenues from international
visitor spending from 2013 - 2017 which resulted to rise as a share of the country’s
GDP and of total goods and services exports.

1.2. Vinatel introduction

Vinatel hotel is a 4-star standard hotel, located in the center of Hanoi city, an attractive
stopover for any tourists coming to the capital of Vietnam. The hotel was designed by the
talented French architect Alexandre Gustave Eiffel. Visitors who come to Vinatel hotel
will enjoy spacious and modern space with many conveniences, but still maintain the
typical relaxing style. In 2019, the hotel was voted as one of the 10 famous hotels in
Vietnam voted by the General Department of Tourism.
2. Organizational chart

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 Figure 1. Organizational chart of Vinatel
To be more specific, in Sales department, there are typical functions for the fulfillment of
the selling process. The booking management model will follow the chart below:
3. Core business process
Vinatel is a traditional hotel situated beside the Sword Lake. We are providing rooms and
services as many surrounding hotels. The following diagram demonstrates the two core
business processes of Vinatel including room order and service usage:

Figure 2. Core business process of Vinatel

Vinatel is a hotel that you can book through phone, trip advisor or social media. Through
booking, receptionists can record the customers’ basic information such as: name, e-mail,
phone numbers and their desired rooms. The users can give feedback to booking process
by the rate of 5 stars on trip advisor or social media. The rooms are divided into four
categories based on our provisions included: Single room, Double room, Suite room and
President room . The manager will have additional functionalities when compared to the
common users. He can add, update and delete book details, room types, service types and
booking confirmation.
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4. Reasons for topic selection
In the present age, with the rapidly development of technology and the globally trade
world, each company needs to install management information system. This may be
because information systems allow to store a large amount of necessary information such
as information about customers, services, and many aspects of operating activities to help
with the performance of operations. Business operations will be smooth and time-saving
to control and analyze significant data. In addition, a suitable information management
system to the actual situation of the hotel will ensure to meet the increasing demands of
customers for quickness and convenience during bookings room in hotel. Not only will
hotel management information systems help businesses manage and operate better in all
aspects such as customer service (meals, laundry, entertainment, etc) but also businesses
will have an overview and understand the activities of each department in the hotel with
this system. Thereby they can give the best directions to help develop business and
increase revenue for the hotel.
It can be said that the information system is an effective tool, is the right hand for
businesses to develop and create brand value and optimal competitive position in the
market not only in Vietnam but also in in international markets. Therefore, it plays an
important and indispensable role for every business.
The current hotel's operational structure is quite simple and clear. Each department here
is assigned and understands its own specific tasks, which made it become the best choice
for us to research and build an easy-used management information system for business.

5. Expectations from the project

By successfully implementing this project, Vinatel will have a useful tool in controlling
their core business process. Moreover, knowledge acquired during the development of
this software will be useful in the future in creating any technology infrastructure or
online database systems.

III. Investigate the real world to select business problems

To have a more valuable insights into the hospitality industry, a small-scale research
should be carried out. The research will include two main parts: survey in the form of
interview and document study.
1. Interview
To have a clear understanding and information about our Hotel’s process, we have
carried out a research. This project will interview several customers about our service as
well as Hotel’s manager and staff in the process of controlling.
We have done this interview when Hotel use Excel software instead of creating Access
system to record booking information.

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The project will be carried out at the meeting room on Friday (2/10/2020) with face to
face interview.
The expected outcomes of the interview:

- Understanding about employees’ experience perception and develop better service

systems
- Getting a better understanding of how to manage data, then improving data storage and
representation software.

Interview Questionnaire
With Data Management
Department

Question Answer

Q1: How can you manage guest’s Excel is the program which VINATEL uses to
room booking? record all the input and output of booking. We
have customer’s information when
receptionists record customer bill. We pick up
information and fill in the sample spreadsheet.

Q2: What is the key information that Personal information. And then I need:
you need to record on a bill? - The type of room that customer book.
- The check in and check out date.
- The cost per customer in that type of
room.
Q3: When a customer wants to book a I have to look up to the keys board, that’s how
single room, is it easy for you to find I know which room is available at the
it? moment. However, I do not know which will
be in the future.
Q4: Do you have any difficulty with I find it very manual to import data onto the
this Excel controlling system? spreadsheet. It is hard for me to link data, find
available room and control room booking.

Q5: Please suggest some idea to Oh, I think that our Hotel should have an
improve these obstacles. alternative software and replace Excel as soon
as possible. May be some software that can
create the spreadsheet links the elements to
look for available room easily.

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 Interview Questionnaire
With Accounting
Development

Question Answer

Q1: How can you record all the revenue I have to create sheet in each kind of room
and customer’s service cost incurred? in Excel for statistics and calculations.
After that, we find and compare data
between the spreadsheet and the invoice.
Calculating the revenue of each room type
and adding all sheet in one.

Q2: How are revenues and expenses The hotel record all of money transaction
reported? so that all the revenues and expense are
reported on the copy of invoice

Q3: How long does it take to make Its about 1 week if there is anything go
report? wrong but making report can take so much
more time
Q4: Which step make you waste much Ah, I must say that it is when we use joint
time? function to link each information then
summarizing the data and calculating
figures.

Q5: What do you need for saving time Hmm, my job will be saving time when
when you do your accounting job? my workload reduces, or new staffs are
employed.

Q6: I think that Hotel can have some
solution to reduce your volume of work
by creating new program, so what do you
expect?
Because using Excel make data is not clear
enough for Accountings like us, we want
to have the power of a relational database-
the ability to bring a lot of information
together quickly such as creating forms,
tables, queries, relationships and reports

In general, Room booking management system is very crucial for Hotel business so that
having a comprehensive view and understand the difficulties employees are facing is in

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need. Excel cannot fulfill the needs of the management department as well as the
accounting department, so replacing Excel by more professional program is unavoidable.
Access software can codify data, make information checking become easier and increase
booking system security.

2. Document study
To investigate more about the need for an efficient management information system of
hotel, precedent studies in the same field have also been reviewed.

In "a study of hotel information technology applications", international journal of

contemporary hospitality management (2005) of Law, R. and Jogaratnam, G., it was used
not merely to replace the existing paper system but also to improve customer services and
to enhance operational effectiveness. Unfortunately, the empirical findings also indicated
that hotel decision makers did not seem to realise the importance of it for the purpose of
developing business strategies and, therefore, it was generally not used in hotels for high‐
level business decision‐making.thus, this paper will contribute to help raise the awareness
of it involvement at all levels of hotel business processes, and facilitate hoteliers to
proactively incorporate it into their efforts to remain competitive in the industry.
In another research namely “Increasing the quality of hotel management information
systems by applying workflow technology” by Caro, José l.; Guevara, Antonio; Aguayo,
Andrés; Gálvez, Sergio said that computer-supported cooperative work, and, specifically,
workflow technology aim at supporting the work carried out in a company by the use of
computer systems. The objective of workflow management systems is to provide a
computer environment that efficiently supports the work carried out in any organization.
This article presents workflow methods applied to a hotel and provides a new and
innovative management information system that enables better integration and
automation of the processes taking place in any hotel. The model of information systems
has certain benefits and competitive advantages, for example: better control by the
management of the running of the hotel; improved service quality thanks to the
coordination offered by workflow systems; unproved efficiency in the development of
processes due to applying reengineering to workflow models. All these advantages
contribute to reach the final objective: increasing the quality of the information system.
The research - “Management Information System (MIS) in Hotel Industries to Improve
Overall Efficiency” - concludes that effective usage of MIS data can leads to
improvement in many departments thus increasing overall efficiency in the hotel. Any
management information system contains some static reports about the customers in
hotel. These reports contain static data about the customers such as full name and room
numbers which cannot be changed by removing or adding new feeds.
It is obvious that the demand for a hotel management system is always available. The
investigation taken above has suggested some expected outcome of the project:
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- A standard hotel’s data warehouse will be successfully built.
- From the collected data system, the data reports can be retrieved for target customer
analysis.
- An easy-to-follow instruction is created for serving both direct and indirect users.

IV. System analysis

To identify the requirements and set up the design, we approach three methods that
support any structure of an information system and the relationships within it. This will
provide our group with a format to allow later analysis as well as presentation of data:
- Business function diagram (BFD)
- Entity relationship diagram (ERD)
- Data structure diagram (DSD)

There is a main assumption in the ERD and DSD of Vinatel. We assume that 1 person
can only book 1 room at a time. We are treating every customer as independent
individual. In reality, Customers can come visit our hotel as a group of friend or family.
In that case, we have not taken into account the situation in which 1 customer can book
multiple rooms at once. Therefore, services are used ,usually be paid by other family
members/ friends in other rooms would all be attributed to 1 person only. This exaggerate
the amount of revenue that person contribute to the company and might make our
customer care unit overfocus on that customer.

1. Business Function Diagram

Business Function Diagram (BFD) is used to perform functional analysis of Vinatel
and describe the division of functions into smaller functions within the system.
In particular, our hotel management information system contains three main
functions: classification management, sales transaction management, and reporting.
Firstly, upon receiving bookings, the system takes in customer information and
create a table of data with each row representing information of each customer who
have paid a stay. The system also classifies rooms according to the room type and
services according to its name.
Secondly, the system matches each customer ID with a unique booking ID
(including room) each time they call in. Therefore, at any moment, the system can
figure out which customer is staying at which room and which rooms are available.
This system also matches service usage with the person who use it through booking
ID. The system can tell during the stay, what services and how many for each
service a customer use
Thirdly, the reporting function manages bookings and services uses to prepare

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various reports regarding revenue from room, customer, quantity used for each
service.

Figure 3. Business function diagram of Vinatel

2. Entity - Relationship Diagram

2.1 Basic concepts of Entity-Relationship

Entity relationship diagram (ERD) is the visual representation of an entity relationship.

An entity relationship diagram (ERD) shows the relationships of entity sets stored in a
database.
There are three basic elements in Vinatel ERD diagram:
- Entity Type
- Relationship
- Notation
Entities: are the main objects for which we have information. Entity symbols are in the
rectangle shape.
Relationships: are associations between or among entities. Relationship symbols are often
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in diamond shape.
Notations: refers to the maximum number of times an instance in one entity can relate to
instances of another entity.

2.2 Entity-Relationship Diagram analysis

From the list of entities above we can define the relationships between the entities:
- A customer can have one or more than one booking. A booking belongs to one and
only one customer.
- Each booking is bound to only 1 room. Each room can be booked by multiple
booking.
- Each room belongs to only 1 RoomType. Each RoomType can belong to many
rooms.
- Each booking ID uses many serviceUsage. A ServiceUsage is only used by 1
Booking.
- A ServiceUsage belongs to 1 and only 1 Service. Each Service belongs to many
ServiceUsage.

From the above relationships, the entity-relationship diagram of Vinatel is

presented as below:

Figure 4. Entity-relationship diagram of Vinatel

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2.3 Data structure diagram

Data structure diagram (DSD) is a diagram of the conceptual data model which
documents the entities and their relationships, as well as the constraints that connect
to them. The basic graphic notation elements of DSDs are boxes which represent
entities.

Figure 5. Data structure diagram of Vinatel hotel

There are 6 main data table areas within the database: Customer, Room,
RoomType, Booking, ServiceUsage, Service
- Customer: Customer database is the collection of information that is gathered
from each person. This includes customer_id, customer_name, phone_number,
email
- Room consists of room_id and group_id
- RoomType consists of group_id, group_name, group_price, group_description
- Booking consists of booking_id, checkin_date, checkout_date, customer_id, room_id
- ServiceUsage comprises id, booking_id, quantity, service_id
- Service comprises service_id, service_description, unit_price
Each of these table areas was linked with a junction field that allowed a one-to-many (1 -
∞) relationship linked back to the general table which means one record in a table
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can be related to one record in another table.
- A customer can have one or more than one booking. A booking belongs to one
and only one customer.
- Each booking is bound to only 1 room. Each room can be booked by multiple
booking
- Each room belongs to only 1 RoomType. Each RoomType can belong to many
rooms.
- Each booking ID uses many serviceUsage. A ServiceUsage is only used by 1
Booking.
- A ServiceUsage belongs to 1 and only 1 Service. Each Service belongs to many
ServiceUsage.

V. Steps to create the database design model on Microsoft Access

After investigating, to solve the problem as we discussed before, we designed the design
model of the database system on MS – Access. Four types of Access objects include
table, query, form and report.

1. Data Tables

The steps involve in creating database tables on Microsoft Access are as follows:
1. To start with, go to the Create tab.

Figure 6. Table creation

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 2. Then, click Table.
3. A new table will be created. The table name is set to “Table1” by default
4. To save your table under your desired name, rgight-click the table1 icon in the left
panel. A drop-down list appears, choose Rename
5. Enter the name you want, then Ctrl+S to save your name

6. Under View section, click design view to design the table

7. A new window is open. Each row represents a field’s name and its data type. You can
type anyname you want for any field and choose data type for the field in the drop down
list
8. To set primary key for a field, click on that field’s name. After that, under Design tab,
click Primary Key in Tools section

Note: All the primary key fields will be automatically assigned datatype of AutoNumber.

Take table RoomType for example which include 4 fields: group_id(AutoNumber),

group_name(Short text), group_price(Currency), group_description(Short Text):

Figure 7. RoomType table in design view

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Here is the table in Datasheet view:

Figure 8. RoomType Table in Datasheet view

2. Data Queries
The common steps to create a query on Microsoft Access by Query Wizard are as
follows:
1. In the Create tab, under Queries section, click on Query Design

Figure 9. Query symbol

2. A Design view of the query is open. Drag any table or other query that contains
information related to your request of information in the blank design view of the query.
Each table/query is represented by a rectangular box
3. Access will automatically join the tables/queries you just dragged. Pick out the fields
you need to display by dragging the field’s name in each box down to the grid below.

4. To manipulate data in each field by calculating sum, avg, count…, click Totals
under Show/Hide section in Design tab. This action will create a new line called
Total in the underneath grid. Click the down arrow in the newly created line in each
column and select the desired calculation for your data (count, sum, average,…)

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 Figure 9. Query Wizard – Field selection
5. Under Results section, click Run so that query returnn the sult based on your
requirement
3. Data Form

The steps involved in creating form on Microsoft Access from existing tables are as
follows:
• In the Navigation Pane, click the table that will take input from your form, and on the
Create tab, click Form.
• Access opens a new form in Form view. Under View section, click Design view
to create boxes where users will input data and command button to switch between
forms

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 Figure 10. Customer form in Design view

Under Controls section in tab Desgin, theres a dialog box that contains many symbols,
each represent a button/box to create in a form. The “xxxx” box is command boxes,
which are displayed in yellow in our form.

For example, from Booking table, we created and designed the Booking form as the model
below.

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 Figure 11. Booking form in design view

4. Data Report

Figure 12. Base Query

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We have prepared all the necessary information to form a report in our queries. To create
report, we only have to create report for each query at a time.The steps to create a report on
Microsoft Access are

1. Choose the query that you want to base your report on.
2. On the Create tab in the Reports group, click Report. This is the result

Figure 13. Report on based query

3. To modify the design to your interest, click Design view under View section in
Design tab

For example, from the query “Service Query”, we created and designed the report “Top
Service By Quantity” as below.

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 Figure 14. “Top service by quantity” report in design view

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 Figure 15. “Top service by revenue” report in report view

VI. Instruction for common users and managers

According to the unique features of our database, two main users of our system has been
identified as:
- Common users
- Managers

When you open the Access file, our hotel’s main switchboard appeared. There are two options
in this switchboard: Vinatel Management and Vinatel Report.

Figure 17. Vinatel main switchboard

1. Common users
For common users, especially hotel’s staff, Vinatel Management option is where they can
add new information. There are six sub-options in this switchboard: Add room type, Add
room, Add service, Add customer information, Add booking information and Add service
usage.

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 When you click on certain sub-option, the corresponding form will open with blank record.
After entering the data, click on “Add new” button to add new data, then click on “Back”
button to return to Vinatel Management switchboard.

If you want to find a specific record to delete, click on “Find record” button, enter record ID
in “Find what”, and click on “Find next”, then close it.

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 We can easily delete that record by clicking on “Delete record” button.
This information will automatically be added to relevant table and reported through
corresponding queries that we made.
2. Managers
On the other hand, Vinatel Report option is where the managers should consider. This
switchboard contains a total of 8 reports which is absolutely essential for hotel management.

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 Click on the report you need to view, the information showed on report are those which has
been transferred from table through queries. Each report contains data and the sum (for
revenue) at the bottom of the report.

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 CONCLUSION

1. Summary of the accomplished findings.

From the project, some outstanding outcomes have been obtained:
- A hotel’s data warehouse was successfully built.
- A standard database warehouse to store and retrieve data on Access was successfully
built.
- From the collected data system, data reports can be retrieved to prepare customer analysis
reports, thereby giving suitable outreach strategies to potential customers and similar
incentives corresponding to loyal customers.
- An easy-to-follow instruction is created for serving both direct (executive managers,
directors, etc) and indirect users (customers).

2. Limitations of the research

Once information is provided through the management information system (MIS),
decisions can be made regarding the effectiveness of business operations. Limitations still
exist with an MIS, such as the expense to create and implement an MIS, training time for
employees, lack of flexibility and capturing wrong or incomplete information. The MIS is
designed to provide information to management so sound decisions can be made
regarding company operations. The biggest flaw an MIS can have is pulling incorrect or
inadequate information for management. This problem results in wasted time and money
for the company, leading to another review of the MIS to correct the information flaws.
Moreover, we assume that 1 person can only book 1 room at a time. We are treating
customers as independent individuals. In reality, customers can come visit our hotel as a
group of friend or family. In that case, we haven’t taken into account the situation in
which 1 customer can book multiple rooms at once. Therefore, services used, although
paid by other family members/ friends in other rooms would all be attributed to 1 person
only. This exaggerate the amount of revenue that person contribute to the company and
might make our customer care unit overfocus on that customer

3. Future expectations
- Our research is expected to provide more useful data system for the hotel’s managers.
- Further studies are expected to significantly increase the total revenue of the hotel,
expand potential customers and improve the limitations.

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