Some of the top hotel brands in Vietnam have jumped into the Tet gift bag market by releasing their own offers for the seasonal presents as more Vietnamese consumers are willing to spend big money on better-quality gifts made from safe ingredients.

Tet, or the Lunar New Year festival, is the biggest public holiday in Vietnam celebrated around February, with celebratory preparations starting a month earlier and festivities lasting a week after.

It has become a tradition for Vietnamese to give relatives, friends, colleagues and business partners gift bags on this occasion, with each bag containing foodstuffs that are typically enjoyed during Tet such as fruit jams, nut seeds and wine.

Companies are also known to give employees Tet gift bags to celebrate the holiday.

Traditionally, supermarkets in Vietnam sell gift baskets before and during Tet, but the choices over designs and components were limited to mid- and low-priced items.

With Vietnam’s growing middle- and high-income classes, top hotel brands in the country have in recent years been tapping the luxury Tet gift bag sector in the hope of making additional money from the lucrative occasion as well as improving their brand recognition among high-end customers.

Gift bags offered by luxury hotels often contain a bottle of expensive wine and foods or snacks that are advertised to be prepared by the hotels’ own chefs using high-quality, imported ingredients.

Such luxury gift bags, which come in packaging designs unique to each hotel brand, can fetch between VND400,000 ($17) and VND4.5 million (US$195) apiece.

A five-star hotel situated at a prime location in downtown Ho Chi Minh City has rolled out three choices of gift bags for this year’s Tet holiday, with prices ranging from VND1,188,000 ($51) to VND3,488,000 ($150) per bag.

A Tet gift bag offered by a hotel in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: I.T. / Tuoi Tre

According to a representative, more than 1,000 of such gift bags, which also come with a membership card that gives holders the privilege of enjoying a 15-percent discount at all restaurants and spas in the same chain, have been sold as of the time of writing.

Another hotel brand in Hanoi has gone for less traditional choices of foods including chocolate, foie gras and imported spirits in their gift bags, which fetch up to VND3.2 million ($138) apiece.

According to N.T. Lan, a supplier of Tet gift bags in Hanoi, demand for hotel-branded Tet gift bags has grown by 5-10 percent this year compared to 2018, and some top hotel brands have already stopped taking new orders for their gift bags as early as in January.

Apart from traditional retail channels, hotels have offered their gift bags for sale at a slight discount on e-commerce platforms to reach more customers.

“Although the prices of gift bags sold by hotel brands can be much higher than those of traditional gift bags available on the market, they remain sought after since their contents are prepared by hotel chefs using select ingredients,” Lan said.

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