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Five-star luxury hotels just got a whole lot more expensive in Hanoi

By Vi Vu October 12, 2017 | 10:44 am GMT+7

New statistics show a five-star hotel room in the capital now costs an average of $151 a night, compared to $118 in Saigon.

Five-star hotels in Hanoi have raised prices by 38 percent on average since last year and are charging significantly more than their peers in Saigon, with statistics showing a strong increase in the capital's international arrivals in the first nine months.

A report from real estate consultancy firm Savills showed Hanoi’s luxury hotels charged an average of $151 per night in the third quarter, which was a slight drop compared to what spring holidaymakers had to pay, but a massive leap from a year ago.

Room rates at three and four-star hotels also went up slightly to $48 and $73 per night, leaving the city’s average hotel fee at $108, up 26 percent from last year.

The industry’s supply has expanded 8 percent from last year to 9,840 rooms, but tourism figures show that arrivals have been growing at a much faster rate. International arrivals to Hanoi in the first nine months increased 24 percent on-year to around 3.5 million, according to the city’s statistics office.

Also according to Savills, Hanoi’s luxury hotels are now much more expensive than in Saigon, where five-star hotels now charge an average of $118 per night, compared to $67 for a four-star room and $43 for three-star accommodation.

The southern megacity, which received 4.2 million foreign visitors in the first nine months, plans to add more than 3,600 hotel rooms in the next three years.

Hanoi and Saigon, the country’s largest and most expensive cities, are also the top tourist destinations in Vietnam thanks to a mixture of historical sites and modern vibrancy.

In April, budget tourism site Price of Travel named the cities among the cheapest tourist spots in Asia for 2017, with daily expenses for a backpacker estimated at $18.16 in Hanoi and $18.33 in Saigon.

Hanoi, a 1,000-year-old city, was also named the cheapest travel destination by TripAdvisor travelers between 2014 and 2016. The travel site’s report last year estimated that a three-night holiday for two in Hanoi costs only $494, which is nearly four times less than New York, the most expensive travel destination in the ranking.