Beach hotel to wake up sleepy Cua Lo

Provincial Planning and Investment Department director, Nguyen Van Chat, said the project would receive a licence soon, after local authorities met with officials from the Ministry of Planning and Investment to discuss the project last week.
The project, a joint venture between the Bien Hoa-based Hong Thai Construction Consultancy Company (36 per cent) and the Australian Safekeeping Investment Trust (64 per cent) broke ground a few months ago but has not yet received an investment licence.
The $50-million complex is located at Cua Lo beach and consists of hotels of two to five-star standard, as well as holiday villas, serviced apartments and sport and recreation centres.
A lotus-shaped recreation area will stage music and dolphin shows, while other features of the complex will include tropical gardens, restaurants and shopping centres.
While local officials and investors hope the project will boost the province’s tourism sector, saying the area holds great potential for ecological and beach tourism, attracting large numbers of foreign visitors may remain a challenge.
“It is not too big project, as it is a place that has great potential for developing beach and eco-tourism,” Chat said.
Project general director Cao Hong Dinh has said Cua Lo would no longer be a dormant city and that everybody in the area would be involved in the activities and events that the complex is planning to organise in order to attract visitors.
However, although Cua Lo is well-known to Vietnamese tourists who flock to its beautiful beaches during summer holidays, very few foreign tourists have yet come to the area. The area’s cold winters detract from its beach holiday attraction, but beaches such as Danang, Nha Trang and Phan Thiet, which are ideal for year-round tourism, do not have any hotels on the scale of the Cua Lo project.
Hong Kong-based hotel management company Swiss-Belhotel International has been chosen to provide pre-opening technical advice and to operate and manage the ambitious project.
But, its managers have accepted they will have to work hard to attract visitors to the area.
Swiss-Belhotel president Gavin Faull said tourism in Cua Lo has yet to be developed to its full potential.
“It is now our responsibility to change the face of Cua Lo forever through innovative ideas and initiatives, aggressive sales and marketing efforts and high profile PR, social and cultural activities,” he said.
According to Faull, Swiss-Belhotel has opened a representative office in Hanoi which will be manned by a group of experienced professionals who will be able to concentrate on the project.
The company’s director of operations and development for Vietnam, Jan Hilhorst, said he believed strongly in the potential of Cua Lo and wanted to work with the local authorities to improve existing tourism facilities and add new infrastructure to make Cua Lo one of northern Vietnam’s major tourist destinations.
“We will work hard and harmoniously with the authorities and hope that the project will be as successful as we expect it to be,” he said.
“Cua Lo is still unspoiled, with 10km of beautiful pine trees and clean, white sandy beaches. The area’s peace and quiet and the project’s offer of relaxation and entertainment will be very attractive for tourists from Vietnam and abroad.”