Trekking Essay: Annapurna Massif In Himalayas - Mountain Escape.

You have been appointed as the Project Manager by Mountain Escape – a travel agency that offers a range of trekking and hiking holidays – to organise a 14-days trekking trip around the Annapurna Massif in the Himalayas. The trip is aimed for the moderate level hikers.

Mountain Escape has requested that you produce a project scoping documents: a Charter and Schedule on how you intend to plan to undertake the project.

The package will include airport transfers, accommodations, meals, insurance, permits, Sherpas etc. Typical cost of similar trekking tours (with moderate difficulty) in Himalaya and Karakorum regions vary between AUD 5000 – AUD 5500. The trip is scheduled for 26 July, but you have to have the scoping documents ready three months before the trip.

1.Your business case and governance strategy are to be determined by you and this should be explicit in the Foreword of your Charter Document. The foreword should be no longer than 200 words. The overall word limit is 1000 words.
2.You are required to put in a reference list at the end of your document appropriate to the size of this document e.g. 1 reference per 200-300 words and the reference list is not counted in the word limit (this is standard for most management journals and management conferences). 
3.The Charter should be approximately 3 pages and can include dot points, which should have lead-in sentences. 
4.Tables, figures, appendixes and references are excluded from the word count.
5.Elements that may be included in your Charter, but are not limited to:

Title
Client organisation
Project Manager
Problem/Opportunity
Business benefits
Assumptions
Stakeholders
Constraints
Deliverables
Success Criteria
Scope of Work (both in scope and out of scope)
Milestones
Budget (in a time frame) 

Benefits of Trekking Trip for Mountain Escape

The project mainly focuses on an organization named “Mountain escape” which is one of the travel agency that mainly helps in offering a range of trekking and hiking holidays. The client organization has organized a 14 days trekking trip around the Annapurna Massif in the Himalayas. The trip that was organized is only for the moderate level hikers. The package of the trip mainly includes accommodations, transfers meals, insurance as well as Sherpa’s. As the organization wants to expand its business, it arranged a trekking trip at a reasonable price for attracting customers so that they can get the opportunity to expand their business successfully.

The project manager is the person who is mainly responsible of initiating, planning, executing as well as controlling the closure of the project successfully. In this project, the project manager has been appointed by the organization “Mountain Escape” for organizing a trekking trip around the Annapurna Massif in the Himalayas. The trip is mainly aimed for the moderate level hikers. The project manager mainly engages in producing a project scoping report that mainly include schedule as well as charter in order to undertake the project properly. 

As the organization “Mountain Escape” is planning to grow its entire business in order to provide trips in the Himalayan region, the trekking trip around the Annapurna Massif is quite advantageous. It is found that if the organization is able to provide proper service of trekking trip then more customers will get interested in the trip. This is considered as an opportunity for the organization as the organization will be able to expand its business in short period of time I they gain more number of customers.

The business benefits of the trip mainly include:

Enhanced revenue: Due to undertaking the trip, the revenue of the organization “Mountain Escape” increases.

Gaining customers: Due to proper customer service during the trip, more customers will get interested for the trip which will be helpful in enhancing the number of customers.

Expansion of the business: If the organization is able to provide proper service to the customers then the customers will get interested to engage in trekking trip under the guidance of the organization which will be helpful in expansion of the business. 

The assumptions that are generally made within the project are as follows:

• The trekking trip will be completed within the estimated time
• The entire budget that is needed for completing the trip is around AUD 41,380
• The project will provide proper experience of trekking to the travelers.

The stakeholders who are mainly involved within the project are as follows:

Budget planner: The budget planner is the person who mainly engages in managing the budget that is mainly associated with the project.

Project Management Responsibility

Project planner: The project planner is the person who mainly engages in planning the entire project so that the entire plan for the trekking trip will be developed successfully.

Tour planner: The tour planner is the person who mainly engages in planning the tour of the project in order to provide proper trekking experience to the customers.

Project manager: The project manager is the person who has the entire responsibility of planning, initiating, executing as well as controlling the trip plan successfully within the assumed time and budget. 

The constraints of the project include:

Budget: The entire project must be successfully completed within the estimated budget. If the project managers are not able to complete the plan for the trekking trip within budget then they will face number of financial issues as well as challenges.

Time: The entire plan of trekking must be completed within the estimated time otherwise extension in project schedule will enhance the project cost that will create financial burden on the organization.

Scope: The project must progress as per its scope in order to complete the entire trekking plan with the estimated budget as well as time.

The deliverables of the project include the following:

• Project plan
• Project reports
• Sightseeing analysis report
• Better customer service
• Providing proper experience of trekking to the clients or travelers

The success criteria of the project include:

Proper customer service: If proper customer service is provided to the customers by the tour agency then the tour trip is considered to be successful.

Completion of project plan on time and budget: If the entire project is completed within the estimated time and budget then it the project can be considered successful. 

      The scope of the work mainly include

• Developing a plan for organizing a trekking trip around the Annapurna Massif in the Himalayas
• To provide transfers, accommodation, meals as well as insurance facility to the travelers
• To complete the trip within 14 days
• To complete the entire project work within the budget

  The milestone of the project includes:

It is identified that the entire budget that is needed for organizing a trekking trip around the Annapurna Massif in the Himalayas is around $43,925. The project manager will complete the entire project within the estimated budget.

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