VietNamNet Bridge – The average hotel room rate in Vietnam remains 10% to 15% higher than the rates in some regional countries despite efforts to reduce prices to lure travelers recently, the national tourism authority says in a report.

Some tour operators told the Daily that just hotels in big cities like Hanoi and HCMC have reduced their rates, while hotels and resorts elsewhere still keep the rate or just offer fractional cut.

Some tour operators told the Daily that just hotels in big cities like Hanoi and HCMC have reduced their rates, while hotels and resorts elsewhere still keep the rate or just offer fractional cut.

“I’ve booked a room night of an international resort in Phan Thiet City for this Lunar New Year. The resort has increased the rate from US$79 to US$145,” said Ta Thi Cam Vinh, manager of the outbound department of Ben Thanh Tourist.

She said that some small hotels surrounding the Ben Thanh Market of HCMC set the rate for foreigners at around US$40 per night, which Vinh claimed to be preventively high.

“With the rate, I can buy a three-star hotel room in Malaysia,” Vinh gave comparison.

The report was presented last week in Hanoi at a meeting of the hospitality industry to seek ways to cope with the difficult situation.

According to the report, occupancy is going down especially in HCMC in Hanoi. Average occupancy at many hotels in the two cities has fallen by around 10% to 20%, while bookings for the coming months have also tumbled.

“The average occupancy of hotels in Vietnam is to reach around 49% in this year, down by 2 percentage points compared to 2007,” says the report.

Some hoteliers in HCMC last week have confirmed the decline.

Now is the high season for international arrivals but many hotels have reported occupancy of about 60%. Some hotels have said that their occupancy is around 40% to 50%, or even as low as 30% in some days of the month.

“Our cooking and beverage revenue has also fallen. The hotel manages to maintain salary for the employees but reduces other fringe benefits,” said the manager of marketing and communication at a five-star hotel.

The Hotel Department said the country has around 10,400 tourist accommodations with over 207,000 rooms. These include 31 five-star hotels with nearly 8,200 rooms, 90 four-star hotels with nearly 11,000 rooms, 175 three-star hotels with over 12,500 rooms, and 710 two-star hotels with 27,000 rooms.

In the first 11 months of the year, Vietnam’s tourism has welcomed nearly 3.9 million tourists, a year-on-year increase of merely 1.1% thanks to strong increase in arrivals in initial months of this year. The number of international tourists started to fall since the middle of 2008.

At the meeting, the Hotel Department has also seen lower hotel room rates as a good way to attract more visitors to come back.

(Source: SGT)