HCMC five-star hotels cut rates for locals

Half of the 12 five-star hotels in Ho Chi Minh City will slash their room rates for Vietnamese guests by 50 percent from September 1 to October 31 as part of the “One day at five-star hotels” promotional program.
The program is aimed at attracting more visitors to the city on the occasion of the southern hub’s Big Sale Month discount program to take place next month.
The Rex Hotel and the Hotel Majestic are offering Vietnamese customers room rates from US$80 per room per night, Saigon Times newspaper reported.
A night at the Sheraton Saigon Hotel &Towers will cost $160, $109 at the Renaissance Riverside $109, $120 at the Caravelle Hotel a night and $75 at the Windsor Plaza Hotel.
Tao Van Nghe, chairman of HCMC’s Hotel Society, said the hotels were offering different room rates based on their average rate of the month.
He said the rates were even lower than what the hotels normally offered travel agents.
La Quoc Khanh, deputy director of the city’s Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said the department would urge other hotels to join the program to help increase city-wide occupancy rates.
“Vietnamese people’s demand for travel is increasing,” he said. “We want to make people familiar with luxury facilities and encourage them to stay there.”
HCMC hoteliers have seen a sharp decrease in international arrivals to the city since the beginning of this year.
The southern hub, one of Vietnam’s most popular tourist destinations, attracted 1.34 million international tourists in the first seven months of 2009, or 10 percent less than the same period last year.
It resulted in an 18 percent decline in the average occupancy rate of three- to five-star hotels in HCMC to 53 percent.
“The market is not likely to recover soon so we need to launch attractive programs to lure local guests,” Khanh said.