More local investors, especially private ones, are now seeking investment opportunities and showing interest in building luxury hotels in Ho Chi Minh City.
Truong Vinh Tho, head of the Hotel Division under the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, said that there were more local private investors wanting to invest in hotel projects while the number of foreign ones was fewer.
“We do not have detailed figures, but the number of investors who said they may invest in big projects was on the rise,” Tho said.
Some investors planned to invest in housing projects at first, but then turned to hotels due to greater potential, he added.
According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the city has 910 one- to five-star hotels with nearly 26,850 rooms.
The room occupancy of three- to five-star ones which attract mostly foreigners was around 71% last year, up five percentage points from the previous year. Besides, the average room rate of such hotels was US$94 per night, up 2%.
The growth of hotel rooms in the city is currently lower than the growth of international arrivals, the main source of income for the city’s tourism, Tho said. Therefore, the potential for hotel investments is quite high, he added.
“The tourist volume rose by 12.9% last year while the number of three- to five-star hotel rooms was up by nearly 5%. The room growth has not gone up much in recent years, and thus more investors want to enter the market,” he said.
Source: The Saigon Times Daily
