Apec may face plush-hotel shortfall
International leaders may have to rough it when they arrive in Hanoi for next year's Apec summit.
The Vietnamese capital's scarcity of top-class hotel accommodation has authorities scrambling to figure out how they will put up the thousands of politicians, bureaucrats and journalists who will descend on the city for a few days in November next year.
There are only about 3,000 rooms in Hanoi's handful of four- and five-star hotels. Organisers don't yet have an estimate of how many will come for the summit, but South Korea expects about 6,000 for this year's Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation meeting two months from now.
'Providing accommodation for officials at the Apec meetings is a challenge, but the administration and Hanoi's authorities will work out a solution,' said Pham Tu, vice-chairman of the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism.
Hotel representatives say they are already being stretched under normal circumstances. The fast-developing country is seeing a steady climb in numbers of tourists and foreign business visitors.
'We have seen a significant increase in terms of room occupancy even during [the] summer period, which we consider our low season,' said Nguyen Thanh Thuy of the Sofitel Metropole Hanoi, one of just seven five-star hotels in the city.
The construction of new high-end hotels, often slowed by Vietnam's notoriously bureaucratic approval process, is failing to keep pace with the demand. Only two new four-star inns are expected to open in time for the summit, and between them will offer fewer than 200 additional rooms.
Nevertheless, Vietnamese authorities insist they won't be embarrassed when many of the most powerful officials in the world come to town next year. Apec's 21 member nations include the United States, China and Japan.
'We have held major events in the past and always been able to provide good service,' said Cao Thi Ngoc Lan of Hanoi's tourism authority.
Vietnam's newly struck Apec organising committee is looking at holding some meetings outside the capital, as well as using some residential villas and apartments.
It has also asked management of existing hotels to get busy with renovations, although even the inclusion of three-star accommodation will only boost the number of rooms in Hanoi to 6,000.
