MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HANOI NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION  DUONG DINH BAC EVENT PLANNING SKILLS OF THE TOURISM STUDENTS MAJOR: PSYCHOLOGY Code: 9310401 SUMMARY OF PHD DISSERTATION IN PSYCHOLOGY HANOI - 2019 The dissertation is completed at: Hanoi National University of Education -Scientific supervisors: Assoc Prof PhD Phan Trong Ngo Assoc Prof PhD Le Mimh Nguyet Reviewer 1: Assoc Prof PhD Nguyen Hoi Loan Hanoi Social Sciences and Humanities - Hanoi National University Phản biện 2: Assoc Prof PhD Tran Thi Minh Hang National Institute of Education Management Phản biện 3: Assoc Prof PhD La Thi Thu Thuy Institute of Psychology - Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences The dissertation will be defended in front of the University Dissertation Examiner Council at Hanoi National University of Education at …….… , on November, 2019 It is possible to learn about the dissertation at: National Library, Library of Hanoi National University of Education LIST OF PUBLISHED WORKS SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES Duong Dinh Bac (2018), The current status of event planning skills of the tourism students with major of tour guide, Journal of Education, Vol.2/May 2018, p.312-316 Duong Dinh Bac (2018), The factors influencing event planning skills of the students with major of tour guide, Journal of Social Psychology, No 10, p.59-67 PREFACE Rationale Tourism is the activity that is associate with many events Although lots of events are not the tourism products, they have become one of these impressive fearture that attract tourists to visit tourism destinations and are exploited in terms of serving the tourism activities The effectiveness of the tourism event determine not only the quality of the tours but the prestige of the tourism companies that bring back a wide range of benefit for stakeholders, especially in enhancing the atractiveness for these tours and make the tourists satisfy with their journeys Therefore, it is necessary for ensuring the success in planning the events during the tours and it is a key factor in forming the brand image, increasing the speed of market penetration, increasing revenue and overcoming the seasonality in fields of tourism activities Event planning skills for tourism students are very important for professional activities as tour guides later They need to plan and organize attractive events for visitors in order to make the tour successful In Vietnam today, there are limitation in terms of tourism event planning, most of them only focus on teaching the form of events without focusing on equipping knowledge, practicing the fundamental skills as well as providing the event-based teaching methods for students This research contributes to solving difficulties in the process of forming tourism event planning skills - one of the important occupational skills to help tourism students assert themselves and achieve success in their career after graduation From the perspective of psychological science, event planning skills are the basic skills in professional activities of tour guides Based on the above reasons, the topic "Event planning skills of the tourism students" was selected for PhD research Research aims Determine the current level of the event planning skills, the factors that affect the event planning skills of the students of tour guiding major nowaday By doing so, the suitable solutions are proposed in order to gain new quality in terms of event planning which satisfy the tourism requirements Research tasks - An overview of research on event organization, event planning skills; - Defining the theoretical framework for event planning and event planning skills; Clarify the factors that affect the skills - Survey on the status of event planning skills of students in the field of Tourism and the factors that affect the actual status of event planning skills of students in the field of tourism - Proposing and experimenting with some impact measures to contribute to the formation and development of event planning skills of tour guiding Subjects of the research Manifestation and level of tourism event planning skill of tourism students Scientific hypothesis The process of training and researching shows that tourism students have gained the medium level of event planning due to the impact of knowledge and personal characteristics Therefore, the event planning skills of students are unstable and not yet proficient, in which the skills of studying psychological on tourists' characteristics, needs and ideas of event are stillat the low level It is possible to use a number of training methods such as increasing the amount of knowledge about tourists' psychology, systematizing the knowledge of event planning as well as confidence of student in operating the tour, improving the quality of training methods of lecturers that lead to improve the event planning skills for students, thereby contributing to improving the quality of tour guide training in universities today Research scope 6.1 Scope of content: Study the basic skill groups in the event planning of tourism students, including: Study psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of tourists; Build the event ideas based on the needs of the tourists; Event planning skills based on the event idea; Organizing and managing activities during the event process; Skills of summerizing and assessing the process of event implementation 6.2 Scope of research objects: In fact, there are several majors for tourism students, such as Tourism, Tourism culture, Tourism management and Hospitality Within the scope of the study, we only conducted a survey of the event planning skills of tourism students at some universities Research methodology 7.1 Approaching methods 7.1.1 Interdisciplinary approach to science, in which Psychology, Tourism learning is the core The study of event planning skills is carried out in an interdisciplinary approach, including Psychology, Education Studies, Travel Studies, Culture Studies, Sociology, etc., in which History is a science that has a core role 7.1.2 Operating approach Researching the situation, identify causes as well as propose measures to improve the skills of planning events for tourism students must stem from individual activities and directed to those activities 7.1.3 System approach Researching event planning skills must be placed in a complex system, including the study of elements which have organic relations with them 7.1.4 Historical and practical approach Appreciating current state and proposing solutions for improving event planning skills of tourism students based on the feartures of economy, society, cuture and edication in Vietnam 7.1.5 Approach of development Research on the development of the skills is required to base on the development of the event planning theory; besides, must be based on the development of the student activities within the trainning time, and based on the development of the society 7.2 Research methodology (introduced in Chapter 2) The contribution of the study 8.1 Theoretical contribution By building a theoretical framework of event planning in tourism activities, the thesis shows the elements of event planning skills based on the process, target and feartures of tourism activities Research results of the thesis helps analyze and clarify some basic concepts: event, tourism event, tourism event planning, especially building a new concept of tourism event planning skills for tourism students in the process of training 8.2 Practical contribution: The results of the thesis have contributed to the clarification of the levels of tourism students’ event planning skills, while showing the influence of subjective and objective factors to the current state of the skills and proposing feasible solutions to improve the skills of the students The structure of the thesis: The thesis is organized into chapters: Chapter Theory background of researching the event planning skills of the tourism students Chapter Organizaton and methodology Chapter Practical research result of tourism event planning skills of tourism students Chapter - THEORY BACKGROUND OF RESEARCHING THE EVENT PLANNING SKILLS OF THE TOURISM STUDENTS 1.1 Literature review on the research of event planning and event planning skills 1.1.1 Research on event planning 1.1.1.1 Worldwide research on event planning * Foreign authors give their views on the event: The event is a phenomenon or an incident, an event that is unusual, meaningful or satisfying human needs The event may be ceremonial (large-scale celebrations of the State) or less ritualistic (conferences, meetings, birthdays) or not ceremonial like games individuals, families, collectives * Studies on event planning include some of the following major directions: - Studies on the characteristics and requirements of the event planning: Activities of tourism event planning as well as celebration ceremonies are scientific and artistic, requiring creativity and flexibility, not merely a sequence of jobs The festival is the event for people in general and tourists in particular The issue of interest is the attractive level of festivals and events as well as the method of festival management to ensure safety and satisfy the needs of guests and event planners - Studies on factors that affecting event planning acitivities: Including subjective and objective factors such as the infrastructure tourist destination-place where events are operated, the competencies and qualities of event planners 1.1.1.2 Research on event planning in Vietnam * Academic research on event planning: The Vietnamese authors mentioned the steps of planning event such as making programe details, estabishing the event budget, planning, operating event, managing during the time event running , the role of event planning Besides, they also study on these issues such as: the nature of event activities, event planning based on the administrative cultural standards, state management, techniques and poitinng out what event planning need to concern * Research on event planning management: The authors indicated several problems that need to be solved by businesses in the process of planning event; management of event planning activities, for example, festival management; how the cutural elements of events toward the local traditional values; the causes and solutions in terms of raising the efficiency of event management 1.1.2 Research on event planning skills 1.1.2.1 Worldwide research on event planning skills The trend is to study the skills in terms of technical elements: skills are expressed in three levels when deploying and performing tasks: accurate, complete, skilled and flexible * Technical research on the process of event planning: The authors stated the steps to plan the event and the coordination process to plan the professional events, point out the requirements, the steps to prepare for the planning of events, management and marketing for events in order to achieve high efficiency, policies for planned events, the methods of implement the plans The planning step rewuires creativity factor that makes the event more joyful and lively * Research on the event planning skills: The authors point out the practical experiences in modern event management, identifying components and their roles as well as methods of handling incident in the process of organizing the event * Studies on event planning training have shown the basic issues in training event planning skills for learners: Event training has not clearly identified and decentralized the skills that need to be provided to students in the beginning of approaching the issue of event management The skills that are evaluated to play the most important role are personal skills, then social skills and knowledge skills respectively The authors debate their views on the event and the steps for implementing the event as well as the conditions for successful event Through the study of scientific works on event planning skills of various authors in the world, the following issues can be highlighted: + The field of events that the authors are interested in is large-scale, + Focusing on socio-cultural factors, + Requirement of skilled and creative human resourses served for event planning, + Training activities on event planning to create basic and specific skills 1.1.2.2 Vietnamese research on the event planning skills * Technical research on the process of event planning The authors raised the basic requirements of event planning skills It is necessary to determine the specific nature and content of the steps that are appropriate for the customers, mentioning some specific skills such as communication skills, public speaking skills, compiling administrative documents, skills to organize meetings/seminars/performances However, it lack of practical studies to perfect the envent planning skills * Research on event planning training activities also mentioned these methods, requirements, properties and skills of event planning activities such as: The authors pay much attention to evet planning activities in the fields of trade, seminars, conferences, social communication, community games, festival or cultural activities, the customs and habits issues The authors also made requests for students to take steps into the activity of planning the event The research on event planning 10 - It is a deliberate and planned activities - Based on the needs of visitors - Require the processes of investigating and understanding the needs as well as the psychology of tourists 1.3.3.3 Process of organizing tourism events Step 1: Study the psychological characteristics, the needs and the ideas of tourists Step 2: Build the idea of planning tourism events according to the tourists' needs Step 3: Plan the event according to the event idea Step 4: Organize and manage activities during the event process Step 5: Summarize and evaluate event planing activities 1.4 Event planning skills of toursim students 1.4.1 The concept of skill Skills are the application of existing knowledge and experience that results in a corresponding activity The thesis indicates the event planning skills of tourism students with the criteria of accuracy, flexibility and skilled quality of actions 1.4.2 The concept of event planning skills Event planning skills are the application of knowledge, speciality and business to create new and significant facts and activities that bring deep and meaningful impressions to event participants Dividing groups of event planning skills: Skills to study psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of event subjects Skills to build the idea of planning events based on the needs of the event subject Event planning skills according to event planning ideas Skills to organize and manage activities during the event process Summary skills - assessing the process of event implementation 1.4.3 Concept of tourism event planning skill Tourism event planning skills are the application of knowledge, speciality and business of tour event planning to create new and significant facts and activities that bring deep and meaningful impressions to event tourists 1.4.4 Tourism event planning skills of the tourism students 1.4.4.1 The concept of tourism event planning skills of tourism students 11 Tourism event planning skills of the tourism students are the application of knowledge, speciality and business of tourism students in terms of planning event for tour to create new and significant facts and activities that bring deep and meaningful impressions to event tourists 1.4.4.2 Sub-skills of tourism event planning skills of tourism students: (1) Groups of skills to study psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of tourists including: - Skills to study psychological characteristics of the tourists - Skills to identify tourists' needs, requirements or goals - Skills to determine economic conditions and the level of budget for tourists (2) Group of skills to build the event ideas based on the needs of the tourists including: - Skills to determine the nature, content and scale of the event - Skills to identify participants in the event - Skill to determine event process in tour - Skill to define the space and venue of the event - Skills to identify the highlights of the event - Skills to build event scenarios according to the idea of event planning idea (3) Group of event planning skills based on the event idea including: - Skills to catalog the names and prices of supplies and list of relevant human resources needed - Skills of systematizing activities will happen in the event - Planning skills in detail and overall preparation - Skills to plan the implementation of the event - Planning skills for supporting jobs in the event - Planning skills to prepare budget for the event - Planning skills to handle incidents in the event - Skills of organizing discussions and collecting opinions/feedbacks of the involved parties - Skills of evaluating and completing the overall plan (4) Group of skills to organize and management activities during the event process including: 12 - Skills of management and overseeing the event area - Management and supervision skills of event participants - Skills of managing auxiliary activities - Skills to identify the list of auxiliary activities for the event and check the preparation work based on the checklist and coordinate in handling the incidents (5) Group of skills to summerize and assess the process of event implementation including: - Summary meeting skills - Skills to make a list of real expenses after the event - Skills to make a summary report to the leaders 1.4.5 The factors influencing event planning skills of tourism students 1.4.5.1 The self-confidence of tourrism students Including issues related to self-awareness, be timid or brave, confident, ready to show-off their abilities 1.4.5.2 Knowledge on event planning, including: Psychology of tourists based on age, gender, occupation and region, History of festivals, celebrations, ceremonies / rituals of various events, Identify event parameters to ensure feasibility, The impact of the event on the tourists, Technology and skills of using computers 1.4.5.3 Creative idea in problem-solving Event products are creative, initiated with ideas instead of machine stereotyping Problems must be properly awared of the nature and solved creatively and flexibly in order to satisfy the highest demands of the tourists in events 1.4.5.4 The teaching/training methods of lecturers and managers, staffs from tourism firms The teaching staff must be standardized and up to date on knowledge, professional skills, foreign language skills must be at good level In addition, there must be the practical experienced lecturers come from many type of tourism businesses or companies 1.4.5.5 Event training program for students aims to help them: 13 Creating new activities for tourists in the tour, Understanding the work, tasks, role of an event planners and working environment in the field of event planning, Know the basic items and steps in planing and organizing an event through basic tool forms, Be aware of the necessary and auxiliary skills of event management in the tour, Prepare and perform events in a systematic and effective way 1.4.5.6 Facilities and equipments for training and planning events Includes facilities for serving up the organization of training courses such as gymnasium, stage, hall, internet and accompanying equipment CONCLUSION FOR CHAPTER Currently, there is not any study that clearly indicates the level of skills and factors affecting the event planning skills of tourism student in learning activities The event planning skills of tourism students are complex skills with five basic components: research skills of psychological characteristics, needs, ideas of tourists; skills to create the idea of organizing the event according to the tourists' needs; planning skills according to event ideas; skills of organizing and managing activities during the event; skills of summarizing and evaluating the event In which, skills to create the idea of organizing the event according to the tourists' needs and planning according to the idea of organizing the final event plays the most important role Event planning skills of tourism students are influenced by many factors such as: self-confidence; teacher's teaching methods, knowledge and practical learning conditions of students Chapter - ORGANIZATON AND METHODOLOGY 2.1 Research sites and sample selection 2.1.1 Research sites: includes Universities Hanoi University of Industry, Hanoi Social Sciences and Humanities (Hanoi National University), Tay Do University, Haiphong University, Hanoi Open University respectively 14 2.1.2 Sample selection * Sample for exploration: 150 students (including sophomores, juniors, seniors) majoring in Tourism from Faculty of Tourism - Hanoi University of Industry * Sample for interview: 575 students (including sophomores, juniors, seniors) * Sample for interview: 18 pairs of lecturers and students * Sample for observation: 18 students * Sample for empirical impacting: 62 sophomores with medium and below avarage level of skills 2.2 Research contents 2.2.1 Theotical research Analyzing and synthesing research on students’ event planning inside and ouside Vietnam 2.2.2 Practical research Indicating the current state and level of event planning, analyzing some subjective and objective factors affecting to event planning skills, practicing some experimental methods 2.3 Research process 2.3.1 Theorical research Preliminary survey is carried out on 150 toursim students of Hanoi University of Industry 2.3.2 Practical research Focus on clarifying the expressions and levels of event planning skills of tourism students 2.3.3 Empirical Organization The empirical group is made in the new method and can join the training coures to comprehend the knowledge on tourists’psychology as well as on the event planning 2.4 Research methodology 2.4.1 Document research Specify the concepts of skill, event, event planning and event planning of tourism student; the current expression and the factors affecting to the skills of tourism students 2.4.2 Observation 15 Observe the expressions and levels of event planning skills of the tourism student travel guides 2.4.3 Questionnares Including contents of survey 2.4.4 In-depth interview Design list of questions before conducting the survey in order to clarify the future collecting datas; raising question, being a good listener, taking necessary notes and analyzing useful information 2.4.5 Empirical method Empirical method impact on the skill group of tourrism students in studying the psychological characteristics, needs and tourist ideas 2.4.6 Specialist method Ask for the requirements of the event planning, the skills needed to collect the professional feedbacks about the expression of event planning and the factors that affect the event planning skills of the tourism studens 2.4.7 Mathematical method of statistics To identify the event planning skills of tourism students in fact and to determine the correlation between the factors affecting the event planning skills and the tourism students’ event planning skills 2.5 Criteria and rating scales Based on the medium score and the standard deviation, the basics are gradually broken down to either side of the medium score (plus or minus one standard deviation) + Level - skills at the low level: Not accurate, not skilled and not flexible + Level - skills under the average level: making many errors, less skilled, less flexible + Level - skills at an average level: Few errors, relatively skilled, relatively flexible + Level – skills at above average level: Almost no errors, nearly skilled, nearly flexible + Level - skills at a high level: extra accurate, extra skilled, extra flexible 16 CONCLUSION FOR CHAPTER The research is organized according to a rigorous and scientific process with a combination of different research methods: document research, questionnaire surveys, observations, interviews, quizzes, experiments , data processing methods Using flexibly the research methods help the research results to be complete and accurate on many aspects: from the awareness of nature and the level of skills to the manifestations of event planning skills in behavior in practical operations; from the perspective of individual expression to the overall and general manifestations; from status survey to practical testing The data and information collected in the topic are processed and analyzed from many angles with multi-dimensional techniques for reliable and scientific results Based on the results of quantitative survey with high accuracy, the author has grounds to confirm and prove the research arguments and find the impact factors and propose feasible solutions to improve the skills of planning events for tourism students Chapter - PRACTICAL RESEARCH RESULT OF TOURISM EVENT PLANNING SKILLS OF TOURISM STUDENTS 3.1 Research finding about event planning skills of tourism students 3.1.1 The levels of event planning skills of tourism students 3.1.1.1 General appreciatione for event planning skills of tourism students Table: Evaluating event planning skills of tourism students Item No Results Groups of skills Most appearing Mean Mean Standard deviation Median 3.41 0.59 3.50 3.50 3.47 0.59 3.50 3.50 3.42 0.55 3.38 3.54 3.49 0.56 3.55 3.44 3.45 0.66 3.50 3.75 Event planing skills 3.44 0.59 3.44 (unskilled: – 2.25; low-level: 2.26 – 2.84; avarage level: 2.85 – 4.03; 3.50 Study psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of tourists Build the event ideas based on the needs of the tourists Event planning skills based on the event idea Management activities during the event process Summerize and assess the process of event implementation skilled: 4.04 – 4.62; highly- skilled: 4.63 – 5) 17 Event organizing skills in general and the group of event planning skills of tourism students in particular only reached the medium level: few errors, relatively skilled, relatively flexible (mean 3.44) At this level, students gain some results through their practise in terms of teacher support but there are still some mistakes Skill groups have different level of gaining Skills groups with higher levels of remaining skills are skills to organize and manage activities during the event process (mean 3.49, rank 1) In particular, the skills of research on psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of tourists are even lower (mean 3.41, rank 5), but still reach the medium (average) level 3.1.1.2 The level of event planning skills of tourism students through the lecturers' case study and assessment of lecturers The results of the survey showed that the percentage of students who answered incorrectly was lower than the correct students (44.91% compared to 55.09%) For the skill group of Studyinging psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of the tourists has the same rate of wrong and correct answers, but the mean is 3.41- the lowest compared to the remaining groups Skill group of organizing and managing activities during the event process of students has a difference in the accuracy of answering situations with a significantly high false response rate (42%) In order to find out the evaluation of the lecturers on the skills of students in Tourism, we offer the content of the event planning skills and suggest the teachers evaluate these skills of their students The results show that lecturers in the evaluation of students' skills of planning events identify that the students’skills reach the medium level (mean 3.16) Meanwhile, the skill group with the highest rank is Study on psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of tourists (mean 3.43), however, this difference is not significant To find out the level of objectivity in the tourism students' self-assessment of their event planning skills, we compared students' self- assessment with their teacher's assessment The comparison results show that lecturers assess their students' planning skills also reach the average level of 3.16, not much lower than the selfassessment of students 3.1.2 Current status of event planning skills of tourism students 3.1.2.1 Skill group of Studying psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of tourists 18 The research results show that: the group of skills to study psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of tourists of tourism students only reaches the level of average (few errors, relatively skilled, relatively flexible) with mean 3.41 At this level, students can gain results through their practise in terms of teacher support but still make mistakes 3.1.2.2 Skill group of Building the event ideas based on the needs of the tourists The research results show that the group of medium skills of students only remains at the medium level with the mean 3.47 However, the highlights of the skills set to build the idea of planning the event are the skills of negotiating and persuading tourists to unify the event planning scenario (mean 3.45) are at the lowest rank The remaining skills are at the medium level and has the similar rank 3.1.2.3 Group of Event planning skills based on the event idea The survey results show that students' organization planning skill group only remain stable at the medium level with mean 3.42 There are some high-ranked skills such as skill of making a list of responsible participants and the detail tasks with the mean 3.55, rank Overall, the level of implementation of planning skills of students is not high The basic reason is that students are not aware of the importance of planning activities; besides, there is no method for planning systematically and logically Therefore, in addition to improving the sense of learning in general, it is necessary to equip students with basic awareness of skills and create conditions for students to practice skills to make the most effective plan 3.1.2.4 Skill group of organizing and managing activities during the event process Survey results show that the skill group of students are not high (mean 3.49); students achieve skill levels at a medium level These high-ranked skills can be clearly seen as: Re-check the event script, the introduction/presentation of the MC in event (mean 3.68 ranked 1) In general, the level of implementation of event planning and managing skills of student is still low due to the following basic causes: Students have not been deeply trained and practise in terms od solving problems/incidents arising in the event; Students not have the initiative and flexibility when facing these problems; The number of students assigned the actual task of this activity is still morderate, most students only study theory in class 19 3.1.2.5 Skill group of Summerizing and assessing the process of event implementation In general, the skill group of summarizing and evaluating events of tourism students are at the medium level with mean 3.45 There are some high-level skills shown such as negotiating, persuading, committing and thanking guests with mean 3.65, rank The level of performing the skills of summarizing and assessing of student is still low In our opinion, there are some basic reasons such as: Students have not been deeply trained and pratise on how to assess the issues of the event; Students not have the initiative, flexibility and especially the ability to convince tourists; Few students are assigned actual tasks on this activity, most of them only learn the theory in class 3.1.3 Compare the level of event planning skills of tourism students based on the parameters of GPA, gender and class grade 3.1.3.1 Compare the level of event planning skills of tourism students based on their GPA The score GPA under 2.5 is at the average and low learning outcomes; The score is above 2.5 is a good learning result or more, we see a difference in the level of event planning skills of groups of students There are differences in mean between the student groups Group of students with average and below average learning results have skills at a lower skilled level than those with better results, with mean 3.40 compared to mean 3.46 respectively Although there are differences, basically the two groups of students only acquire skills at the average level 3.1.3.2 Compare the level of event planning skills of tourism students based on their gender The survey results show that the planning skills of students in tourism major have a difference between men and women, but the level of attainment of skills is both at the medium level and the difference is not much (mean 3.45 for men and mean 3.44 for women) The data shows that the awareness as well as the skill training process of male and female student is similar, not too gender-dependent 3.1.3.3 Compare the level of event planning skills of tourism students based on their class grade 20 There is a disparity in skill levels between the sophomores, juniors and seniors but all are at average levels The group of students in year 2nd and 3rd who self-assessed to reach the medium level (mean 3.38), while the group of students in the fourth year who self-assess also reached below the medium level but higher than the others (mean 3.51) 3.1.3.4 Compare the event planning skills of tourism students based on their experience in planning events Event planning skills of tourism students have a difference between experienced students and non-experienced students in event planning, however, the level of skills gained is at the average and the difference is not much (the average GPA for the group of students participated in the event planning is 3.46 and the average for the student group never participated in the event planning is 3.34) 3.2 Factors influencing event planning skills of tourism students Analytical results of influencing factors: Student confidence; Teaching methods of lecturers and tourism company experts; Knowledge of event planning shows a positive correlation, although the correlation is not large but it is statistically significant between the above factors and event planning skills of tourism students In the impact model of the three factors mentioned above, knowledge of event planning is the most powerful variable (Beta = 0.266) and the remaining two variables have an almost equal impact on skills of event planning of tourism students (Beta = 0.243 and 0.240) When developing solutions to enhance and strengthen the event planning skills of tourism students, attention should be paid to the three variables extracted in the three factor regression models 3.3 Experimental results impact on the formation of event planning skills of tourism students 3.3.1 Solutions to develop event planning skills for tourism students Lecturers need to apply their students with knowledge and method to study the psychology of the tourists Lecturers need to apply adequate their students with knowledge and actual situation of event planning Lecturers create suitable conditions to help their students be more confident 21 3.3.2 The experimental results Skills in the skill group Studying psychological characteristics, needs and event planning ideas of the control group and the experimental group before the experiment is equivalent (GPA is 2.96 and 3.00 respectively) Comparing the pre- and post-experimental results of the control group, we can be seen, the score of sub-skills in the skill group of Study the psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of the event has the tendency to increase from 3.00 to 3.41, but the skill is at the medium level After a 1-year study period, the level of skills in studying psychological characteristics, needs and ideas for planning events of tourists of experimental group students has changed markedly The survey results show that after the experiment, the skill of studying psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of the tourists of the experimental group has increased to a higher level than that of the control group: mean 4.10 (nearly skilled) compared to mean 3.41 (average) Event planning skills of the experimental group after the experiment process is much higher than before the experiment both in terms of mean and levels After the experiment, the event planning skills of the experimental group increased to a higher level (above average) (mean 3.21 compared to mean 4.08), in which there were some skills gained at higher level such as planning skills according to event planning (mean 4.29 – nearly skilled) or skill group of summarizing and evaluating the process of planning events (mean 4.32 – nearly skilled Since then we can affirm the effectiveness of the impact method that we have used to have practical implications for the formation and development of event planning skills for tourism students 3.3.3 Evaluate the experimental results of impact The impact measures have brought back the stable effects, experimental and verifiable experiments that have been conducted equally at both times, but as a result, the skill level of the experimental group of the students increased This result confirms the empirical hypothesis: training event planning skills based on knowledge content, appropriate teaching methods and training confidence, self-esteem of students in the process of teaching will contribute to improving the event planning skills for students 22 CONCLUSION OF CHAPTER Event planning skills of students are only medium and below medium In the levels hierarchy, event planing skills are ranked from high to low, including skills: Managing activities during the event process; Building the idea of planning events based on the needs of the tourists; Summarizing and assessing the process of event implementation; event planing skills based on the event idea and studying the psychological characteristics, needs, ideas of tourist In particular, there is no difference in the level of event planning skills between men and women, between students with different average score, but there are differences between groups of student Skill group of studying the psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of tourists plays an important role, affecting the formation and development of other skills, but only achieved the result at the lower level than most of the remaining sub-skills Experimental results have confirmed: The level of event planning skills has been strongly increased in both the index and the level under the influence of the impact measure Thus, in addition to creating conditions for students to study effectively with equipment and practice, applying the assessment process in learning, more attention should be paid to teaching methods to enhance the students’ recognition Awareness about the meaning and knowledge and communication in student learning events CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS Conclusion Event planning skills of tourism students are complex skills including groups sub-skills: Study psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of tourists; Build the event ideas based on the needs of the tourists; Event planning skills based on the event idea; Organizing and managing activities during the event process; Skills of summerizing and assessing the process of event implementation Event planning skills of tourism students are influenced by many subjective and objective factors and affected by some measures in the training process Activities of tour guiding will merely bring boredom and bad influence on the tourism industry and reduce the employment opportunities of students after graduation 23 Through actual research, it shows that the planning skills of tourism students are at the medium level When participating in the event planning, most of the students have achieved relatively complete basic operations, but not proper and limited effectiveness, not paying adequate attention to some of the necessary skills The group of event planning skills has a very close relationship Skills group of studying psychological characteristics, needs and ideas of visitors plays an important role, affecting the formation and development of other skills but only achieving the lowest skill level compared to with the remaining skill groups It is necessary that more attention should be paid to teaching methods to increase awareness of Meaning and knowledge and to communicate, express oneself in the learning event to enhance the student planing skills There are many factors that affect the organizing skills of tourism students, in which the element of knowledge about event planning and psychology of tourists has the most important influence It is necessary to use solutions to influence the formation of student event planning skills such as fostering and raising awareness about learning activities of events, such as, enhancing knowledge about the toourists psychology as well as knowledge about how to plan the events, enhance behavioral communication skills, interactive activities for students The process of learning event planning skills of tourism students changes certainly according to the learning process, but it is only an increase in the score due to the impact of the teaching process instead of the marked increase in terms of the skill levels Experimental results in accordance with empirical hypothesis: impact on teaching and learning process can contribute to improving student event planning skills The above research results are consistent with the hypothesis and the tasks of the thesis have been resolved Recommentdations For the universities: Concentrate on the training and retraining of the teaching staff in terms of professional qualifications and teaching methods, enabling them to access the modern teaching methods, applying various types of inspection and evaluation in event training Develop training program for planning events for students in lively, attractive and appropriate forms, with practical contents and need to create conditions/environment for students to practice event 24 planning skills inside and outside the school Create necessary physical facilities such as classrooms, teaching facilities, amount of time for practical learning For professional training in event planning: More in-depth and more extensive research is needed to propose further solutions to improve the students' event planning skills For lecturers who teaching the issue of event planning: Attention should be paid to organizing all the stages in the event planning; Create attractive and practical situations to stimulate creative thinking of students Besides, helping students understand the meaning of event planning from which to actively, voluntarily, proactively and creatively participate in event planing activities For the Tourism students: have a high cognition of the importance of event planning learning for their future career Besides, thay should always learning and updating knowledge from a variety of sources based on the lecturers' learning guides Participate in event planning activities in different levels and forms in order to train and improve their own event planning skills Practicing (in groups) the event management to support each other, learn from each other, and develop their own best event planning skills./ ... SCIENTIFIC ARTICLES Duong Dinh Bac (2018), The current status of event planning skills of the tourism students with major of tour guide, Journal of Education, Vol.2/May 2018, p.312-316 Duong Dinh Bac... will merely bring boredom and bad influence on the tourism industry and reduce the employment opportunities of students after graduation 23 Through actual research, it shows that the planning... with many events Although lots of events are not the tourism products, they have become one of these impressive fearture that attract tourists to visit tourism destinations and are exploited