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| Hotel room rates, occupancy down in HCM City in H1 |
| 30-JUN-2009 Intellasia | The Saigon Times Daily page 2 |
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| 30 Jun, 2009 - 7:00:00 AM |
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The average room rate of three to five star hotels in HCM City in January-June declined 15 percent from the same period of last year while average occupancy dropped more than 20 percent year-on-year, according to a report.
The HCM City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism said in the report that these hotels registered average occupancyof55 percent and that their average room rate was $1 09 per night, down nearly $5 from a year ago. The city has 54 three to five-star hotels with nearly 8,000 rooms.
Duong Hong Viet, general director of the four-star Grand Hotel in downtown HCM City, told the Daily yesterday the hotel's room rate was down around 40-50 percent in the first half of this year while average occupancy slid around 35-38 percent year-on-year.
"We saw a mere decline in the first three months of 2008 but the situation has been getting worse in recent months;' he said.
A source from a five-star hotel said the average room rate at her hotel dipped from $107++ to $93++.
The city's hospitality industry started seeing dampened business a year ago. Then, hotels reported a sharp fall in occupancy after a long time of good business.
According to the report, the financial crisis and influenza A(HIN1) are cutting into the city's tourism. The department said that in the year to June 16, HCM City had received more than 1.33 million international visitors, down 10 percent from a year earlier. The city expects 3.1 million international visitors this year.
The first half of this year saw visitors from Northeast Asian countries plunging but an improvement in some markets in Northern Europe and Southeast Asia.
"The department estimates that international tourist arrivals in HCM City this year will fall 5 percent to 10 percent;' says the report.
This is an optimistic projection for the country's biggest tourism centre. Last year, the minister of culture, sport and tourism, Hoang Tuan Anh, told the Daily that Vietnam would see a drop of 20 percent in international visitors this year, or around 840,000.
The city's tourism authority said in the report that the estimate was based on an optimistic scenario in which the world economy would re-cover late this year, and the A (H1N1) vaccine would come out in some countries.
Viet of the Grand Hotel said, "New bookings for the season are still lower than the same period oflast year but better than in the past three months:'
The HCM City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism today meets representatives of 20 travel companies and 10 hotels to find ways to prop up the city's tourism.
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