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The Mövenpick Hotel Saigon is preparing to
launch an accelerated, US$15 million construction schedule that
entails closing its doors for business on 8 March 2010 to reopen
anew on 1 August 2010.
“Several factors persuaded
us that this was the best course of action,” said Dominik Stamm,
the Mövenpick’s general manager, “but first on the list was, and
is, customer service. Not only will disruptions to guests from an
ongoing renovation process be eliminated, we’ll be able to better
serve them during the resurgence in traffic that’s now widely
anticipated for the fall. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been fully
operational until December, halfway through peak season.”
Stamm stressed that the hotel’s permanent staff
has been assured they will be retained following the renovation
process, during which time their benefits program will remain
intact.
“It’s been great to see that people grasp
the need to take decisive action in order to achieve the desired
results,” said Stamm, who added that guests holding reservations
during the interval the hotel will be closed have also generally
been understanding. “Naturally, we’ve done
everything possible to help them find alternative accommodations,”
said Stamm. So many of them are frequent travelers that they
already comprehend the magnitude of the undertaking and that
sometimes long-term improvement requires a bit of short-term
sacrifice.”
The bold approach to rebranding also
makes sense in the context of Mövenpick Hotels & Resorts’
comparatively recent entry into the Vietnamese market, where they
also opened the Mövenpick Hotel Hanoi last year. The Mövenpick
Hotel Saigon’s previous incarnation – the Omni Hotel Saigon, which
opened in 1994 and converted to the Mövenpick a year ago last July
– has proved a durable identity.
That’s part of the
reason that Stamm will convert OJ’s, the casual eatery near the
entrance to the hotel, into a sort of “presales” office, including
a pictorial history of how the hotel has changed over the years
(During the War, it incorporated the headquarters of the American
Central Intelligence Agency, though that structure was razed in
the early 1990s, when the Omni was built).
“That
will be one measure of the success when this total remake is
complete,” laughed Stamm. “First and most important, our customers
will be happier. Also, nobody will refer to us as the Omni.”
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