Hotel situation in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi

August 30th, 2007

About 2.46 million international tourists visited Vietnam during the first 7 months this year, a jump of 16.2% compared to the same period in 2006, according to the country’s General Statistics Office. These rapidly rising figures have not been met with an expansion in the hotel room inventory. The resulting shortage of accommodation has lead to increases in room rates, especially in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Indications are room rates will continue to increase next year (our note: from 10% up to 50% for some hotels or some period!). Hoteliers suggested this upward movement in rates would taper off in another 2-3 years when more rooms came online. 

In Ho Chi Minh City, 6000 “high-end rooms” would be added by 2010. It now has 3599 five-star rooms, 1281 four-star rooms, 1671 three-star rooms and 3394 two-star rooms. 

The Hanoi Department of Tourism estimated the city needed 26,000 new hotel rooms, three-star and above, to house the two million international tourists expected by 2010. 

The above information is from TTG Asia magazine (August 2007).  

So if you plan to travel to Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi before these additional rooms are ready – our advices are: 

1). We strongly recommended that you book the hotels as early as you can. The sooner you book, the better chance you can get the rooms at the hotels you want. From our experiences, if you can book 2 or 3 months in advance, there will be MUCH more chance to get the hotels confirmed! 

BUT – if you plan to travel during the holiday time (such as Christmas/New Year or Chinese New Year period) – we STRONGLY recommend you book as early as 5-6 months ahead of the traveling dates! 

2). Be flexible with the hotels to stay. As you know we always try our best to accommodate you at the hotels you request but in case that they are really full, we will have to secure you the alternative choices instead.  

3). Be flexible with your traveling dates as because of the problems in getting the rooms confirmed – you might have to adjust your plan such as reduce the number of nights in Ho Chi Minh City or Hanoi and spend more time outside of these two cities if necessary.  

We very much hope that this information will be useful for those of you who are currently planning to travel to Vietnam soon.

Tags: vietnam hotels, hotels in vietnam, hanoi hotels, ho chi minh city hotels

Entry Filed under: Vietnam Destination