Occupancy rates at hotels across Ho Chi Minh City have improved significantly since the start of this year’s summer tourism season, with many hotels reporting 85-90 percent of their rooms have been booked, well above the 10-20 percent logged earlier this year.

According to several large hotels in the city, occupancy rates would be even higher if staffing shortages were not plaguing the industry.

A representative of the Park Hyatt Saigon said the hotel’s performance began bouncing back in March when Vietnam fully reopened its borders to international travelers.

 Its occupancy rate rose about 80 percent in June.

“Our occupancy rate could be higher, but we need to balance our room occupancy with the capabilities of our staff in order to ensure high-quality service,” the representative said.

“Our guests are mainly entrepreneurs, and the numbers of Vietnamese and foreign guests are about equal.

“We hope to welcome even more guests during the last few months of the year."

Similarly, the Sheraton Saigon has seen considerable increases in its occupancy rate, with that number rising from 30 percent at the beginning of the year to 85-90 percent during the summer holiday.

Its guests are primarily Vietnamese delegations from other cities visiting Ho Chi Minh City to attend conferences, meetings, and events.

The hotel expects that its number of foreign visitors will go up toward the end of the year – a time when Vietnam tends to attract large numbers of international arrivals.

The Silverland hotel chain, though it caters more to families rather than business travelers, has also seen a remarkable recovery over the past several months.

Nguyen Van Man, chief operations officer at Silverland Hospitality, said a four-star hotel in its system that prices rooms at about VND1.6 million (US$68) per night reached an occupancy rate of 92 percent in June, with approximately 30 percent of those guests being Vietnamese and the remainder international visitors.

“Among our international guests, the majority are Australians who come to Vietnam for tourism,” Man said.

At a recent event to introduce Ho Chi Minh City’s newest tourism products and services to tourists, a representative of the municipal Department of Tourism’s Hospitality Management Division said that hotel occupancy rates vary amongst different hotel chains, but the average at four- and five-star hotels is currently over 75 percent.

The representative also noted a rise in food and beverage sales at many of these hotels, thanks to an uptick in conferences, wedding parties, and other events.

According to the municipal Department of Tourism, Ho Chi Minh City welcomed more than 11 million domestic visitors and 477,000 international tourists during the first half of the year, soaring 43 percent and 100 percent, respectively, year on year.

The city generated nearly VND49.7 trillion ($2.1 billion) in revenue from tourism during this period, up 29.9 percent from the same period last year and meeting 73.5 percent of its full-year target.

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