By Mong Binh - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC - The Movenpick Hotel Saigon in HCMC’s Phu Nhuan District is due to re-open on August 1 as planned since its overall renovation is almost complete, the hotel’s general manager said.
Knuth Kiefer said August would mark the soft opening of the luxury hotel on Nguyen Van Troi Street before all facilities of the on-going renovation project were completed by mid-September.
“The low season month of August gives us an opportunity to fine-tune our systems and operations before we go into the high season months towards the later part of the year,” Kiefer told the Daily via email on Wednesday.
Some 100 new people have been recruited for training in hospitality essentials for the 278-room hotel, bringing the whole staff at the hotel to approximately 350 in order to create a team that strives on experience as well as new influences.
“We will have an increase in people due to the fact that we will have additional outlets in the hotel as well as a stronger focus on personalized customer service,” Kiefer said.
Alterations to the hotel’s physical facilities cover all the spacious guestrooms, five restaurants including Japanese and Chinese eateries with new menus, bakery and bar facilities, swimming pool and spa, among others.
Kiefer said the major difference was that the entire hotel would not only take on a completely new look but also improvements in services, food and beverage concepts to meet the needs and expectations of customers.
“Yes, the difference in the hotel’s appearance will be striking, but the transformation goes way beyond esthetics. Our enhanced devotion to service will be just as dramatic,” said Kiefer. “The overarching goal is to create a new benchmark in hospitality in Vietnam.”
The Movenpick Hotel Saigon has been closed for renovation since March and when the US$15-million project is completed, Movenpick Hotels & Resorts will manage two operational upscale hotels for both business and leisure travelers in Vietnam.
“The scale of both hotels is crucial to the service concept we’re able to incorporate. Everything else in the new hotel flows from listening to what our guests have been telling us,” said Kiefer, who oversees both Movenpick hotels in Vietnam, the other one being in the capital city.
Kiefer said the Movenpick Hotel Hanoi, which opened some 18 months ago, had been well received in the market. “We are aiming to mirror this success in Saigon in order to have two equally well established hotels in Vietnam.”