Hanoi finds shortage of hotel rooms a sticky issue
24/11/07 (GMT+7)
Hotels in Hanoi, Hanoi City's Department of Tourism is finding itself mired in the severe shortage of hotel rooms as its current facilities now fail to meet current demands, let alone long-term arrival targets, said a department official.
Deputy director of the capital city's Department of Tourism Cao Thi Ngoc Lan told the Daily on Monday that the situation was turning worse as the problem cannot be solved quickly despite efforts to develop new hotels.
"We are afraid that the shortage of hotel rooms cannot be resolved quickly," she said.
The concerns emerged afresh as the Vietnam Administration of Tourism on Monday asked the department to resurvey the city's current hotel situation and seek ways to address the serious of shortage of high-rated hotel rooms in the capital city.
Lan said her department had already made a new survey to prepare a new list of hotel projects to call for investment.
"The city's Department of Tourism last year made a survey on the hotel situation in Hanoi and proposed a list of hotel projects to deal with the severe shortage of the rooms.
The list includes around ten three- to five-star hotel projects, and projects to build resorts and entertainment parks," she told the Daily.
However, almost all projects in the list didn't translate into reality as the city could not allocate land for such projects.
"Many investors have shown interest in developing hotel projects but the city is lacking suitable plans for them," she said, adding that some of the targeted locations were still unoccupied at the moment.
Therefore, the tourism department is now seeking co-operation with other departments and the city authorities to jointly resolve the matter.
Hotels in Hanoi, by 2010, Hanoi is expected to welcome around 1.8mil foreigners and 5.7mil local guests, and the capital city by then needs around 8,000 hotel rooms to cater to tourists.
A new report issued by the department shows that by 2020, Hanoi needs 13,000 hotel rooms to serve over two million foreigners and six to seven local tourists.
"It means that we should build over 3,000 new rooms per year from now to 2010. It's the impossible mission," Lan said.
She said the city government this year had given licenses to foreign and local investors to build six five-star hotels with 2,500 rooms. Three of them have started construction for opening in 2010.
Two weeks ago, the city government also agreed on the schemes for building two other five-star hotels by local investors.
Last month, the city welcomed 114,000 international tourists, bringing the total number of foreign tourists to the capital city in January-October to 1,014,952, up 7.3% compared to last year.
The city now has around 181 hotels of over 8.500 rooms, excluding low-standard rooms at guesthouses and motels. The average room occupancy rate is some 85 to 95%.
(Source: SGT)
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