Hanoi: Five-star hotel occupancy rate only reach 52%
17:00 22/04/2009

Many five-star hotels do not want to cotinue to reducing room rate because they are afraid that it will be hard to increase cost when the market recovers.

2009 showed that room usage at 10 five-star hotels in Hanoi only reached 52 percent, a 10 percent decrease year on year.

This resulted from a sharp decrease in the number of tourists and foreign businessmen, in spite of room prices being reduced to USD 139 a night on average, a decrease of 14 percent year on year.

Ms. Tran Thi Huyen Thanh, Director of the Sen Rung Travel and Trade Joint-stock Co., said that in the Northern and Central Coastal provinces, three-star hotels reduced costs by 10-30 percent, four-star hotels offered a 15 percent discount in room cost during summer 2009 and five-star hotels also discounted 20 percent.

However, Ms Thanh complained that these decreases were too low and made it difficult to impress foreign tourists.

CBRE Managing Director Richard Leech said that five-star hotels need to reduce room rate to maintain the occupancy rate of 65 percent of 2008. As forecasted, Hanoi will have 1,800 more rooms at four-five star hotels during the 2009-2011 period.

VietNamNet/CPV/TT

Source : vietnamnet.vn