Face-to-Face: Pieter de Weerd
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Travel Daily chats with the GM of the recently rebranded Pullman Hanoi, about his hotel and the state of play in Hanoi…
Q) Pullman recently opened its doors in Hanoi – how has the hotel performed since its launch?
Since the rebranding, Pullman Hanoi has been gradually getting an increase in occupancy, mainly in the MICE segments. There is still room for us to improve the leisure and corporate segments, but we’ve foreseen this situation and it is normal due to the delay in contracting when doing the rebranding. Appropriate actions have been carried out and that the situation can be much improved from next season.
Q) As a new arrival on the Hanoi hotel scene, what do you offer that your competitors don’t?
Our top unique selling points are: the fact that we are a fully-renovated international five-star hotel under the upscale Pullman brand of Accor – one of the world’ leading hotel operators and the largest hotel operator in Asia Pacific. Pullman Hanoi now has fully integrated the Pullman brand spirit: vibrant, in-style, cosmopolitan and ‘BLeisure’ (business-leisure).
The hotel is located in the middle of both leisure and business places of Hanoi, within close proximity to international corporate offices, embassies etc, and in a convenient distance to many places of interest.
The Fit Lounge is among the best and most spacious of Hanoi’s five-star hotels, covering 250m² and housing many state-of-the-art facilities
Our MICE service concept, ‘Co-Meeting by Pullman’, offers dedicated IT solutions manager and event manager, and is designed to provide 100% failsafe service. These big ideas are helping us stay ahead of the curve.
Q) How is Hanoi performing as a destination, and what do you believe could be done to improve the city’s tourist experience?
The attractiveness of the Hanoi destination, and Vietnam in general, needs to be improved in different ways. What first strikes visitors is the hectic traffic and noise pollution from the horn of cars and motorbikes, making it dangerous to walk around.
But even before that, there is the long process of getting a visa for many visitors and that makes the country less attractive for the big market of shorts stays from regional visitors (Singapore, Bangkok, Hong Kong, Shanghai etc) and the country needs better planning to attract long-haul visitors, choosing countries where they can get a visa at the airport without too much administrative hassle.
Hanoi has its charm and that need to be kept by applying the proper policies such as regulating traffic, working on the environment, protecting properly the old buildings and tourist areas, improving the welcome feeling at the airports, having better multi-lingual ambassadors to assist travellers etc. Hanoi also needs to keep its uniqueness and not become copy of big cities in neighbouring countries.
Q) What are your hotel main source guests markets?
Most of our guests are from Europe and Australia. We are seeing an increasing trend of Asian guests from Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Thailand, as well as more domestic guests, especially from Ho Chi Minh City.
Q) What events and activities do you have planned for the coming months?
In the last five months we have been in partnership with many social events, business forums and national days. In the coming months, we plan to work closely with both local and international organisations in doing more social and trade events, reinforcing the brand positioning of Pullman as a ‘BLeisure’ hotel, balancing business and leisure.
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