Capital makes room for hotels

The capital city needs to double its hotel rooms in time for its millennial celebrations

Hanoi’s deputy mayor Phi Thai Binh last week said that the city’s authority would create favourable conditions for hotel investors to implement their projects.
In a meeting with five investors proposing to develop five-star hotels in Hanoi, Binh said the authorities would establish a task force to keep up with investors’ needs and find out any problems and solve them in a timely manner.
The task force, expected to be set up this month, will monitor progress of all of the projects and report to the committee to find a solution.
However, Binh said that investors also had the responsibility to follow the planned schedule. “They must report any problems to the task force in a timely manner, in order to avoid unnecessary delays,” he added.
Binh suggested that investors should also study Vietnamese investment, construction and property laws and other relevant regulations and legislation.
“This is very important because investors must obey the law first, then we can solve any problems step by step,” he added.
Five five-star hotels are set to take shape in Cau Giay and Tu Liem districts, on the outskirts of Hanoi.
They include a hotel complex and twin towers backed by PetroVietnam at Me Tri commune’s South-West Sport and Culture Park, Keangnam’s $500 million venture, another $500 million complex invested by Japan’s Riviera, and domestic company Tran Hong Quan’s $17 million for another five-star hotel.
Only Charmvit has received an investment licence, while the rest have obtained in-principle approval and are in the process of finishing procedures to get their licences.
The buildings are expected to be complete by 2010, when Hanoi celebrates its 1,000th anniversary.
Apart from the five locations above, Hanoi People’s Committee has further plans to develop other new hotels in the city. Under this plan, a 3.5 hectare land lot in the diplomatic area in Tay Ho district’s Xuan La commune, a 5.5ha area in Linh Dam peninsular in Hoang Mai district and another section on the other side of the Red River, in the Xuan Non and Nam Hong communes of the Dong Anh district were planned for hotel developments.
According to the municipal Architecture and Zoning Department, due to having the largest area, the last site will be given priority to build a hotel and ecological tourism area, including a low-density residential complex.
However, the foreign investors seem to pay much attention to the west of the city, especially toward the Lang-Hoa Lac expressway, near the newly built national convention centre.
“This area has a lot of potential and we hope to have a project here. In our country we also develop many hotels next to the national convention centre and this combination will bring very advanced facilities to people visiting Vietnam,” said Ha Jong Seuk, chief representative of Keangnam Enterprises in Vietnam.
Hanoi is in need of more high-standard hotels. Jean Luc Bonneau, general manager of Sunway hotel, said the capital lacks four-star and lower-grade hotels, not five-star hotels only.
Some hotels are being extended, such as the Hoan Kiem hotel (four stars, 126 rooms), Dong Loi (three stars, 70 rooms) and Dan Chu (four stars, 160 rooms).
According to the city’s Department of Tourism, the majority of hotels in Hanoi are now operating at occupancy rates higher than 80 per cent.
The city now has 428 hotels in all levels with a total of 12,500 rooms. The city is home to eight five-star hotels with 2,360 rooms and four four-star hotels with more than 1,000 rooms.
With a predicted growth rate of 20 per cent per year until 2010, the city will lack about 10,000 rooms of three-star standard.
The city’s Department of Tourism forecast that by 2010, Hanoi will receive about 2 million international visitors and it needs about 26,000 rooms to serve those tourists.
Once the new five-star hotels, totalling $1.18 billion in investment capital, are operational, more than 2,200 extra five-star rooms will be available.
Therefore, over the next four years, from 2007 to 2010, Hanoi will have to build 3,300 more hotel rooms each year to meet the demand.