Foreign tourists in HCM City.

 With 50 five-star hotels and 68 four-star hotels being built last year, the luxury segment now has 466 hotels with 97,098 rooms, according to a report released by the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism.

The number of accommodation facilities overall increased by 2,000 to 30,000 with more than 650,000 rooms, the report showed.

The rising number of upscale hotels indicated sharp growth in luxury tourism.

Last year, Viet Nam won a number of tourism awards, including Asia’s Leading Destination, Asia’s Leading Culinary Destination, the World’s Leading Heritage Destination, and the World’s Best Golf Destination.

The country received 18 million international visitors, a more than 16 per cent rise.

According to a Savills Viet Nam quarterly report, with no new hotels opening in HCM City in the fourth quarter last year, the three- to five-star segment ended the year with 125 hotels and more than 15,900 rooms.

It was down 1 per cent quarter-on-quarter as three three-star hotels closed, but up 1 per cent year-on-year, the report showed.

The full-year performance by the industry was good with a 68 per cent occupancy rate and a five-year-high average room rate of US$85 per room per night driven by five-star growth.

Savills forecast more than 5,000 rooms would enter the city market by 2023, with the central business district accounting for 59 per cent of them. — VNS

Foreign investors eye hotel market amid tourism boom

Strong tourism development has attracted regional investors to the hotel and resort market.

Vietnam attracts world leading hotel management brands

Japan’s Watabe Wedding Corporate recently signed an agreement with Empire Group Vietnam to organise wedding ceremonies for 1,000 Japanese couples in the latter’s Cocobay Complex in Da Nang in the next three years.