Room rates at five-star hotels unlikely to rise

With three new five-star hotels to be put into service this year, the high-end accommodation supply in HCMC will be abundant and the room rates may not increase, according to some experts.

Tao Van Nghe, chairman of the HCMC Hotels Association, said HCMC currently has 13 five-star hotels supplying over 4,000 rooms. The average occupancy rate of such hotels was quite high last year, at 70%, but the room rates did not increase compared to 2012.

The accommodation supply of five-star hotels will be more plentiful with the three new hotels on Nguyen Hue, Ton Duc Thang and Tran Hung Dao streets.

“With the current number of tourists and businessmen, the five-star hotel segment will have sufficient rooms and it is unlikely that the room rates will rise in the new year,” Nghe told the Daily on the sidelines at the grand opening of the five-star Pullman Saigon Center on Tran Hung Dao Street on Wednesday morning.

Pullman Saigon Center having 306 rooms is invested by Saigontourist Holding Company, Que Huong Liberty Corporation and Saigon Que Huong Corporation. The hotel launched its soft opening last September.

The HCMC Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism had the similar opinions about the room supply of three- to five-star hotels. Last year the average room rate of these hotels was around VND1.99 million per night per room (US$95.5), down 3% from 2012.

According to the department, the rate decline mainly resulted from an increase of 14.5% in accommodation supply of three- to five-star hotels, equivalent to 1,606 rooms.

Among these, the five-star segment had one new hotel (330 rooms) while there were three new four-star hotels (491 rooms) and 11 three-star hotels (785 rooms) last year.

The number of international tourists coming to HCMC was over 4.1 million last year and is expected to rise to 4.4 million this year.