In the lap of luxury

The company’s chairman and CEO Nguyen Trong Hien chats to Timeout’s Son Tran about the Vinpearl brand’s plans for further expansion and the prospects of the luxury tourism market

Before your company built Vinpearl Luxury Danang, two foreign developers had proposed luxury resort projects on this 15 hectare site on Non Nuoc beach but both projects were cancelled. Why did Vinpearl decide to acquire and develop the site?

It’s true that eight years ago a foreign developer had plans to build a luxury resort where Vinpearl Luxury Danang is located today. However, at that time, it was still too early to build another luxury resort in Danang after the opening of the Furama because the market remained small.

Three years ago, the development was resuscitated by another foreign developer but it was still on paper as the global financial crisis took its toll on the cash flow of foreign investors into Vietnam.

However, we were aware that the crisis would not only pose challenges for businesses but also present golden opportunities to expand operations and one of the invaluable opportunities we had taken over was the acquisition of the Raffles Resort project from Kingdom Hotels Investment and European Hotel Corporation to branch out into Danang after our successful operation of Vinpearl resort in Hon Tre island, Nha Trang.

What is the appeal of Danang for Vinpearl?

We highly appreciate tourism in Danang and its resort market. This central coastal city is rich in potential because it has one of the most beautiful beaches on the planet and is surrounded by three UNESCO-accredited World Heritage Sites: Hoi An Old Town, My Son Sanctuary and Hue Imperial City. Danang is developing sufficient luxury tourist products such as golfing, sightseeing by helicopter and scuba diving. Moreover, Danang is the gateway into Central Vietnam and with a new terminal coming into operation soon, more airlines, particularly international airlines will fly to the city.

Although Danang is one of the country’s most popular tourism destinations, luxury tourism services and the number of luxury resorts remain modest and might not be able to cater to increasing demand. Therefore, we decided to build a special luxurious resort in Danang, a tourism paradise that will satisfy demand from well-heeled local and international tourists.

InterContinental Hotels Group, Hyatt International, Marriott International and Accor will soon be opening new luxury resorts along Danang’s coastline. As a result, the number of available rooms in the high-end sector will grow quickly, meaning stiffer competition among hotels – will that put pressure on Vinpearl?

In our opinion, competition will not only pose challenges but also create a lot of opportunities. Over the last decade, Danang had only one luxury resort, the Furama, and it took a lot of effort to promote the destination internationally. However, in the next couple of years, the coast will have many more luxury hotel brands – Vinpearl Luxury, InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Hilton and Marriott. But with their global fame and booking systems, these hotel operators will collectively promote Danang as a luxury destination for tourists from all over the world.

I am confident that with the presence of these brands, Danang will increase its competitiveness in international markets and can rival other major destinations in Southeast Asia such as Phuket and Bali. Of course, the number of rooms increasing means stiffer competition but with better international promotion from new hotels, the number of tourists will also increase. In a competition, there will always be losers and winners.

Yet, I am totally confident that with its infrastructure and service quality of five-star plus standards, Vinpearl Luxury Danang will be a tourism paradise that will enhance Danang’s draw and prestige in international markets.

What are the differences between your resorts and the Vinpearl Luxury brand?

We are following a strategy to become a leading Vietnamese brand in luxury tourism, and we will develop 10 luxury resorts over the next five years under two brands: Vinpearl Resort and Vinpearl Luxury.

A Vinpearl Resort will be of international five-star standard – such as Vinpearl Resort Nha Trang (operating since 2003) and Vinpearl Resort Hoi An (opening next year). We will have more properties under this brand in Dalat, Binh Dinh and Phu Quoc.

Vinpearl Luxury is the higher-end product with unrivalled infrastructure, furniture and equipment. Vinpearl Luxury not only applies five-star-plus standards that the world’s leading hotels are using but also builds its own standards to create luxurious projects in every aspect. Vinpearl Luxury Danang is among those. 

Vinpearl Luxury properties are built to an extremely high-class standard with unique architectural styles, featuring highly valuable artwork, and an excellent blend with the landscape and environment. Rooms of the properties are not only large and designed to particular themes, for example, in Eastern style, rooms are available in styles of the five elements – metal, wood, water, fire, and earth – and in Western style, rooms are designed to the Zodiac stars, but also installed with modern and highly artistic equipment, maximising privacy, comfort and luxury.

What will set Vinpearl Luxury Danang apart from other resorts?

Guests of Vinpearl Luxury Danang will truly experience basking in the lap of luxury. The hotel has 200 five-star-plus rooms with a design style that reflects the contemporary yet classic charm of the grand Indochinese hotels in the early 20th century. Both the interior and landscape are modern, luxurious and elegant. Particularly, the hotel sits right on the beach with all rooms having balconies looking over the ocean.

The villa complex consists of 39 deluxe ocean view villas clad in the luxury and charm of Cham architecture fused with the French Colonial and contemporary styles. The villas will be a perfect escape for those looking for luxury and privacy in a tropical stretch of beautiful beaches. What’s more, guests can also be the owners of one of those luxurious villas.

With a perfect system and professional staff, Vinpearl Luxury Danang offers 24-hour services for every room, every customer with premium services, attentive and professional assistance rendered by hospitable staff, who know customers’ psychology very well.