Question 1
Project Management applies to SA Adventures Unlimited, as each one of their trips is an individual project with a beginning, middle, and end. They also entail classic project phases, including a selection phase, a planning phase, and an execution phase. Project management involves budgeting of resources, and the company’s resources incorporate their administrative staff and tour guides.
An attribute of Project management is project selection. The Rodriguezes need to be able to estimate costs of potential trips in order to make accurate decisions of which trips would be best to operate. Another attribute engages a financial analysis such as the net present value of each potential trip.
Project planning methods such as Gantt charts and network diagrams would be a useful attribute to organize and plan detailed tours to prevent complications, for example, missing a train connection in Blanco Puente. Project planning will also enable the company to estimate costs more accurately as details of trips would be broken down into simplified formats.
Source: (Larson & Gray 2011, pp.3-9)
Question 2
2.1. In order for SA Adventures Unlimited to evaluate its customer’s suggestions for future trips, they would need to divide customer feedback into different categories of complaints. For example, food, transport and accommodation. They would need to collect the data of feedback and look for patterns relating to the different categories. Once patterns have been measured, they can be compared to certain criteria such as cost, time and quality. These comparisons allow an evaluation of the performance of the trips and can be used to give an estimate of future trends. Suggestions can be positive and negative. It is important to evaluate every suggestion in order to get a clear understanding of the customer’s needs [INC, 2010].
2.2. In order to evaluate possible alternative trips,...