The hotel industry is lagging amid low occupancy rates, though room rates are almost at 2019 levels in most areas, according to Savills Hotels.

Vietnam hospitality requires innovative products that can cater to the demands of young domestic and international travellers, such as poshtels, entertainment-integrated complexes, limited-service accommodations, and co-living and co-working spaces, experts have said.

Vietnam’s hotel industry has been slower to bounce back from the COVID-19 pandemic than that of other countries due to a series of factors, including strong reliance on the Chinese market and a large pipeline of hotels, according to Savills Hotels APAC.

The competition in the upscale hotel market will start to heat up, especially in the five-star segment, according to the 2017 Vietnam Hotel Survey released on July 11.

Google and Singaporean sovereign fund Temasek have forecast the Vietnamese online tourism services market to be worth 9 billion USD by 2020, and said local companies should work quickly or risk losing the market to international companies.