Majestic Hotel braces for e-transactions

The five-star Majestic Hotel in downtown HCMC is working on a plan to spur electronic transactions next year to facilitate its business expansion, the hotel’s general director said.
Nguyen Anh Vu told the Daily the hotel would be constructing a new website to facilitate e-payments and boost this sales channel.
The number of guests who make bookings and pay online has been on the rise, accounting for over 28% of guests at the hotel. Meanwhile, online sales make up around 30% of total room revenue from early this year to December 8.
These encouraging results have led the hotel to further embrace e-transactions, he said.
In addition to investing in the website, the Majestic is connecting to other websites such as Agoda and Expedia to get more customers.
The emerging trend of tourists choosing free and easy travel is another reason for the hotel to develop e-commerce. “We have had many promotion programs on those websites and will do the same next year,” Vu said.
The hotel has put its revenue in the year to December 8 at VND192 billion, up 19.3% compared to all of 2009, its gross profit at VND95.5 billion, and average room occupancy at 67.7%.
Concerning the room rate policy for next year, Vu said, the Majestic will keep room rates unchanged from this year since major markets such as Europe and the U.S. have yet to reach full recovery.
The hotel is building a new 28-story building of 205 rooms and when in place after three years of construction, the number of rooms will rise to 380 rooms, plus offices and other facilities at the corner of the Dong Khoi, Ton Duc Thang and Nguyen Hue streets in the city’s commercial district.