Vietnam leads Asian hotel growth list

Vietnam takes the lead in the growth of the Asian hotel sector with a forecast annual rate of 15 per cent for the 2012-16 period, according to the World Travel Market's Global Trend Report 2012 in association with Euromonitor International.
Vietnam was followed by the Republic of Korea, India, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, China and the Philippines, the report said.
The hotel sector of Asia was expected to record strong growth with a compound annual rate of 7 percent thanks to increases in international and domestic visitors.
Notably, Asia had high potential for luxury entrants, according to the report, which points out that Tonino Lamborghini planned to open 40 additional five-star hotels in Asia, with the first nine opening in China.
The report also said that up-market car brands may successfully make inroads into the hotel sector, such as Porsche, Ferrari, Maserati, Bentley and Jaguar, together with several fashion brands.
According to the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism's statistics, there were more than 5.3 million international visitors to Vietnam in the first 10 months of this year, an increase of 11.2 percent over the same period last year.
As of September 2011, there were 12,500 hotels of all kinds with about 250,000 rooms, 53 of which were of five-star standard, 127 four-star and 271 three-star.