There are about 6,000 hotels and tourist accommodations with nearly 123,000 rooms, including 2,575 hotels recognised from two to five star hotels. Eighty percent of the hotels are located in some big tourism centres such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Haiphong city, Quang Ninh province, Hue city, Da Nang city, Quang Nam province, Khanh Hoa province, Binh Thuan province and Ba Ria – Vung Tau province.

Small-scaled hotels face many difficulties in investment and renovation of facilities, modern management technology application, market research and product promotion.
Besides, the capital market of Vietnam has not yet developed with high interest rate of lending, limited mechanisms to have access to credit sources; therefore, it is difficult for hotels to expand their scales and improve service quality.
Hotel firms also face difficulties in doing business such as a shortage of land and premises to expand size of rooms, function rooms and supported services; and difficulties in access to reliable market information for business activities.
Costs of input, including electricity, water, telecommunications and food are high and unstable, which have a great impact on competitive advantages of enterprises. The human resources to work in field of hotel management and service are still left much to be desired and their skills are yet to be up to the mark.
WTO’s accession creates opportunities Vietnamese hotel firms to expand investment and co-operative relations with foreign partners; provide sources of tourists, facilities and tourism products to the firms; and learning about experience and skills in business management.
In the context of fierce competition to attract foreign investment, WTO’s accession is a chance to consolidate and boost competitive position of Vietnam tourism sector. The integration process creates conditions for hotel firms to have access to achievements of science and technology and management science of the world.
Together with international integration, fierce competition in the country makes hotel firms to face strong foreign opponents in their traditional locations. While raising competition depends on internal strength of each firm.
In the time to come, the tourism sector is looking forward to forming hotel groups in Vietnam, creating competitiveness and efficiency in business promotion and implementation. In other words, businesses should grasp contents of Vietnam’s commitments to opening service markets in order to make rational strategies for sustainable development.

(Source: Nhan Dan)