Mövenpick Hotel Saigon begins top-to-bottom renovation (Vietnam)
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Mövenpick Hotel Saigon begins top-to-bottom renovation (Vietnam)
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Category: Asia Pacific - Vietnam - Industry economy
vRenovation / Addition
This is a press release selected by our editorial committee and published online for free on 2009-08-06
Project defies economic downturn, enhances Swiss hotelier’s Asian presence
Guests at the Mövenpick Hotel Saigon may not be aware of it, but a massive renovation is in progress that will modernize and revivify the entire facility. Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts, the Swiss hotel group, assumed management of the 15-year-old, 7-storey, 251-room property last July.
The renovation project, which includes all guestrooms and public areas, will cost USD $20-$25 million and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2010. Construction is being phased to include two guestroom floors at a time, with the first being ready for occupancy by the end of this year.
“The design concept is to retain the existing French colonial features, which add a residential scale and feel to the hotel,” explained Dominik Stamm, general manager at the Mövenpick Saigon. “At the same time, we’ll have a lighter colour palette, a fresher, four-season feel apropos of the vibrant Phu Nhuan District where we’re located,” one of Saigon’s most dynamic neighbourhoods, just 10 minutes from the airport and 20 minutes from the town centre.
Among the public spaces, Nishimura, the Japanese restaurant, is the first to be redone. Other dining facilities to follow include Café Saigon, the all-day dining and buffet restaurant; the Lotus Court Chinese restaurant, famous citywide for its Dim Sum and Cantonese cuisine; and OJ’s Café lounge and take-away. The entire executive floor, including the lounge, will also be redone, as will the gym and the spa area.
In fact, Stamm, a very-experienced hotelier in renovating hotels, stresses the opportunity to reshape the character of the hotel while embracing Mövenpick’s reputation for 5-star quality. Thus, construction activity itself will be restricted to 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. to minimize disruptions to guests, even as the design remains a work in progress.
“A project of this scope represents an opportunity to reshape what you want your guest experience to be,” Stamm said. “So we want to keep the project on schedule, of course, but we also want to be able to tweak the concept. We know, for example, that Mulligan’s” – the pub and casual dining space off the lobby – “will be transformed into more of a late-night bistro spot, but at this point, we don’t know exactly what the concept and menu will consist of, only that it will be different.”
Though this is the first refurbishment of the hotel, the site itself has a distinctive history with some landmark occupants. During the Vietnam War, this address incorporated the headquarters of the American Central Intelligence Agency. That structure was razed in the early 1990s, as Marco Polo Hotel Group, out of Hong Kong, built a new hotel, since 1994 known as the Omni Hotel Saigon; for many years, it stood as HCMC’s first and only five-star venue.
The Mövenpick Hotel Saigon’s sister hotel, the Mövenpick Hotel Hanoi, opened last year in the Vietnamese capital.
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