First Hotel on the Hoi An-Danang Strip Marks a Reawakening in the Region

One year after the global recession curtailed hospitality developments all over, including the premier resort development strip in Vietnam, Life Resort Danang, and the hotel’s owner Hoang Tra Travel and Trading Co., are charging full steam ahead in the final phase of construction.

Life Resort Management (www.life-resorts.com) announced today that the 187-room resort on Bac My An Beach will officially open April 4. Forbes magazine has hailed this stretch of beach as one of the world’s finest.

The opening marks a resurgence of development momentum on this storied stretch of coast between Danang and Hoi An. While many of the major chains have put plans on hold during the recession, one major 18-hole golf course has opened in the past year. A second is on the verge of play, as well.
?“Although we’re opening a resort on the beach, this region’s appeal extends far beyond the strand to the new golf courses, to the Marble Mountains just a few kilometers up the road, to the nearby UNESCO World Heritage Sites at Hoi An, Hue and My Son,” said Chris Duffy, general director of the Life Resorts. “There’s something here for everyone.”

Duffy’s confidence in the region’s appeal is buoyed by the Life Heritage Resort Hoi An, a wholly owned Life Resort property situated 25 kilometers away. That resort won acclaim late last year in the Conde Nast Traveler’s Readers Choice Awards when the resort was hailed as one of the 25 ‘Top Resorts’ in Asia, and the top resort in Vietnam.

This month, Conde Nast Traveler elevated Life Heritage Resort Hoi An onto its prestigious Gold List, one of only three properties in Vietnam to be so distinguished.

“The same appeal that’s won so many accolades for Hoi An — the siting, the design, the service, the je ne sais quoi — is at large at all our properties,” said Duffy. “We’ve bottled up the spirits, as it were, and we’ll be uncorking exactly this in Danang.”

Those bottled spirits are what drove Hoang Tra Travel into the Life Resort’s camp.

“We reviewed many potential international operators at the 5-star level,” said Nguyen Thi Tuy Van, general director of Hoang Tra Travel and Trading Co., Ltd. “But the Life Resorts, with its history of success in Vietnam, its sense of style and its plan, made more sense than any other.”

Life Resort Danang’s 187 rooms will include nine categories of accommodation, from 67 superior rooms and 91 deluxe rooms to suites and villas and one grand presidential suite. The resort will also feature the 1,400 square-meter Nang Spa, with 10 treatment rooms, a fitness center, tennis courts, a resort pool, conference facilities, and several food and beverage outlets, including the 300-seat Senses.

The Dutch resort company is also developing a property on Halong Bay, scheduled to open later in 2010.