Food provides hotel margin

The food and beverage sector of hotels has been the main source of revenue at many hotels, particularly for high-end hotels.

According to Do Thi Hong Xoan, chairwoman of Viet Nam Hotel Association (VHA), food services contributed between 30 and 40 per cent to several hotels’ turnover.

Customers at hotel restaurants are mainly local people, while hotel guests generally eat out, Xoan said.

Representatives of some hotels in HCM City also admitted that in the last two years they had to focus more on the food business because of fewer room stays.

Their turnover from food services now accounts for 50 per cent of the total turnover.

Hong of VHA said that the country has about 13,000 hotels, of which 425 are 3-5 star. On average, each hotel has three types of restaurants including buffet and fine dining. There are a total of 1,275 restaurants at hotels.

To attract more diners, hotel restaurants have organised many food programmes conducted by famous chefs.

John Gardner, an executive of the Caravelle in HCM City, said the hotel often organised between 20 and 30 different food festivals a year.

The hotel’s turnover from food services accounted for 35 per cent of its total, Gardner said.

Joerg Becker, chief chef of New World Hotel, also revealed that because of economic difficulties at home and abroad the occupancy rate in the hotel was not as good as it was expected.

But the hotel’s food business was rather positive thanks to the increasing number of MICE and local guests.

The hotel often had between six and 10 food programmes per year. In recent years, many Vietnamese people are eating at hotels, Joerg Becker said.

Tags: Vietnam food industry