Saigon surprise

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A curtain of rain thrashes down as I alight from a taxi in central Ho Chi Minh City. Dashing into the lobby of the Rex Hotel, I find myself in a marble-walled sanctuary illuminated by recessed lights and glowing aquaria of coloured fish. Many of the women working in the reception area are clad in purple-and-white silk pyjama outfits, adding to the impression that I’ve stepped onto the set of an Indochinese movie.

The venerable Rex Hotel, where I’ve come to talk to managers and check out the facilities, has served as a haven for travellers for decades. It remains one of the best-loved five-star hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, still referred to as Saigon by many of its 8.4 million residents.

The Rex been expanded and renewed several times since it started life as a French garage complex in 1927. From 1959 to 1975 a Vietnamese couple renovated the building and it became the 100-room “Rex Complex” hotel.

Five o’clock follies

During the Vietnam war the American Information Service made its base here. The Rex became a favoured haunt of US officers and was the scene of daily press briefings to foreign correspondents, wryly known by them as the “five o’clock follies”. That’s because, inevitably, the soldiers and hacks would meet in the bar upstairs.

Now the Rex has 286 individually designed guest rooms, a range of function and meeting facilities, a spa, and four in-house restaurants. Located in the prettiest part of Saigon among boulevards and French colonial buildings, it’s within an easy walk of attractions like the vast Ben Thanh undercover bazaar – which expands at nights to become a bustling street market – the main cathedral, opera house, galleries and a variety of interesting museums.

These include the moving Vietnam War Remnants Museum and Reunification Palace, formerly the Norodom Palace. (The palace is the former home of the South Vietnamese President, through whose front gate a tank crashed during the fall of the city to the North Vietnamese army.) The Rex is also 200 metres away from the Saigon river with its teeming restaurants and river cruise dinner boats.

For MICE visitors, one of the most remarkable attributes of the Rex Hotel, as young Director of Sales and Marketing Nick Tran (below) observes, is how cheap it is. For USD150-200 per day you get luxury five-star accommodation, all your food and your meeting package thrown in, he says. “By any standard that’s pretty good, and there’s so much to do for people coming here for events.”

Tunnels are worth visiting

Some 40 kilometres, about an hour’s drive, from the city are the Cu Chi tunnels. These were part of the vast underground network in which the Viet Cong hid during the war, and which served as their base of operations for the Tết Offensive in 1968. The tunnels make for a great incentive trip, says Nick. You can reach them from the city by road or fast speedboats along the Saigon river.

Within a day post-conference you can play golf, loaf on tropical beaches and tour the Mekong Delta with its rural attractions and floating markets, fish and prawn farms, (catch your own for lunch), bee farms and orchards (pick your own fruit), all within easy reach by road. “It’ll cost you less than a hundred dollars a day, including your transport, tour guide, food and drinks,” says Nick.

Around 65 percent of the Rex Hotel guests are business travellers, and much of the Asian MICE business is currently shifting from Hong Kong and Singapore to Beijing and Saigon, Nick says. Many global companies are getting established and doing business in Vietnam, which is politically stable and welcomes visitors. “The corporate sector is really opening up for us.”

From USD150 a day

That includes five-star accommodation, all meals as well as a full meeting package. Rooms-only via web bookings currently start from $104.

Visit www.rexhotelvietnam.com, call 848 38292185 or email rexhotel@rex.com.vn.

Outdoor jacuzzi at Holiday Inn Resort, Batam

Frank Schoenherr is an old-school hotel manager. His counterparts in some hotels are ivory-tower bureaucrats who are seldom seen. Not so Frank, a German speaker born in Prague.

When I stayed at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Manila while he was general manager there, Frank’s beaming face could be seen in public spaces several times a day. He would pop up unexpectedly in corridors, meeting rooms or bars, and he’d occasionally join guests at the breakfast table for a chat. He led his staff by example. I commended him one day on his attitude to glad-handing, and he agreed wryly that it’s not hard to make people feel welcome. It’s just that many folks in his position tend to forget. Frank hasn’t, which explains why he’s doing so well in his current role as general manager of the Holiday Inn Resort on the Indonesian island of Batam, a 45-minute ferry ride from Singapore. This 275-room property, with ten multi-purpose conference and meetings facilities, is targeting events as a market with untapped potential thanks to its nearness to its industrially developed neighbour. “Batam is increasingly seen as a destination for corporate events and incentive destinations, and perfect for inclusion in corporate incentive programs,” explains Frank, whose hotelkeeping career has spanned Austria, Uzbekistan, Slovakia and the Philippines. “We create a home away from home and see guests more as friends than customers.” And he and his colleagues understand the importance of saving clients money. Batam is a short hop from Singapore, so visitors can take advantage of cheaper direct flights to the island state from Australian and other cities. The resort has lush grounds, a vast lagoon pool and a spa, and its meetings specialists provide one-on-one advice.

Frank Schoenherr

Package from AUD68 a day Full-day meeting packages start at SGD 79 (AUD 68, USD 63) per person, and come with two coffee breaks, lunch and complimentary WiFi access in the meeting room. A complimentary return ferry trip from Singapore, and transfers from the ferry terminal to the resort, are included. The offer is valid for stay period until 31 August 2014 with a minimum booking of 50 rooms. See www.ihg.com/holidayinnresorts/hotels/us/en/batam/btaid/hoteldetail. Email reservation@holidayinn-batam.com.

It’s not as cheap as it used to be. Back in 1987, after Lieutenant Colonel Sitiveni (“Rambo”) Rabuka’s coup, when the flow of tourists dried up, desperate resort operators offered extraordinary deals.

An Australian newspaper colleague of mine took his wife and four kids for a few days’ holiday to one of Fiji’s 333 islands that year for around $1,000, including airfares.

That’s changed of course. Today Fiji doesn’t provide international MICE visitors with the same value for dollars as, say, Southeast Asia. They’ll pay AUD200 and upwards a night at a resort, and up to $2,000 for the swankiest options.

So why do visitor numbers to these islands keep growing? According to the Fiji Bureau of Statistics, arrivals for January 2014 totalled 47,551, a year-on-year increase of 3%.

The physical attributes are obviously a drawcard: the reefs, white beaches, nodding palms – and the beaming friendly locals. But you get the same just about everywhere in the South Pacific.

From a MICE visitor’s perspective it all depends how you define value, according to David Pearson, Director of Business Development at the InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort and Spa (left), a five-star holiday and conference complex at Natadola Bay on the main island of Viti Levu.

A major attraction in a time-poor era is that Fiji is only four hours flying time from the Australian east coast and two-and-a-half from Auckland. “It takes eight to nine hours to fly to Southeast Asia,” says David. “If you’re paying executives you’re saving time and money by coming to Fiji for event.”

Moreover you don’t have to travel long and far within the small country to have wonderful outer-island incentive experiences, and the genuine warmth of the Fijians makes a difference, over and beyond other destinations in the South Pacific, asserts David – himself a cheerful presence at the resort. (Though still in his late twenties, he has nine years’ experience in the InterContinental Hotels Group in Australia).

The F&B offering in Fiji has improved tenfold in the past five years, he adds. It was never renowned for being a culinary destination, but that’s changing too, in the quality of the produce, sourced locally, and in the recipes and food offerings gleaned from IHG properties round the world.

For budget-conscious MICE visitors, the January to March rainy season may be the best time to visit the 271-room InterContinental Fiji, with rates generally more competitive, starting from AUD 250 a day per person for accommodation depending on the type of rooms you book, says David. The service and facilities are outstanding, set in beautifully designed infrastructure and grounds, and IHG works hard to keep it that way. “The engineering team works continually to maintain the rooms and grounds in pristine quality,” he says. “The resort’s five years old and it retains a freshness, as you can see.”

“And even in the wet season rain typically comes in the afternoons, then clears, and the water temperature and quality of diving and fishing’s incredible all year round.”

The resort is 45 minutes from Nadi airport and set along one of the best beaches on the main island; its pillarless ballroom can handle up to 600 delegates. Plus there’s a championship golf course on site, with the Pacific as a backdrop on 15 of the 18 holes. An airy wedding chapel fronts a green lawn and the Pacific. A global IT company held a five-day inaugural incentive for its Asia Pacific sales team of 600 here recently, taking occupancy of the whole complex.

Tariffs notwithstanding, Fiji seems set to grow in importance as a meetings and incentive venue. Generous development incentives like depreciation allowances, tax rebates and easy repatriation of capital make it attractive for investors. (Though less attractive are the incentives for the local hotel staff, most of whom only get FJD4-5 an hour). And things are happening, development-wise. A $3.5 million investment by Sheraton, for instance, has resulted in the opening, just recently, of a convention centre with the capacity to hold about 1,200.

From AUD250 a night upwards

Rates for group bookings at the InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort and Spa start from AUD250 per day, and a recent summer special on the property’s website offered 30% off normal retail rates.

The Siteseer was a paying guest at the InterContinental Fiji Golf Resort and Spa.

David Pearson: "you’re saving time and money by coming to Fiji for event."

David Pearson: “you’re saving time and money by coming to Fiji for an event.”

“If you ask me, something sinister lurks in men who avoid wine . . . and dinnertime conversation. Such people are either gravely ill or secretly detest everyone around them.”

It was written by Russian novelist Mikhail Bulgakov in the 1920s. He had a point, some might think.

The Dockside Group, known for its slick waterfront events venues and restaurants in Sydney, understands that a gourmet meal without a glass of wine or two is a tragedy. Which is why it’s hosting a five-course degustation dinner at Sydney’s Italian Village restaurant (right at the harbour’s edge in The Rocks) on Wednesday June 25.

They’re pairing with the New South Wales Hunter Valley’s Margan Wines to present gourmet Australian cuisine matched with some of Margan’s best wines. Vigneron Andrew Margan (below), whose family first planted vines in the Hunter in the ‘60s, will share useful insights and his philosophy on winemaking. Here’s a sample of what guests can expect:

Half-shell scallop with pecorino and herb crumble, pork and duck roulette, Persian feta and eggplant involtini.

And those are just the canapés. To start there’s pressed pork, veal and chicken terrine with pickled vegetables, herb mayonnaise, served with a semillon. And confit ocean trout with avocado and wasabi mousse (chardonnay), and duck leg with cumin spiced lentil, roast root vegetable and jus (merlot and barbera). Sweets include “opulent opera slice,” gold leaf, vanilla macron, coffee anglaise, and chocolate shards, washed down with a botrytis semillon.

There’s room for 150 places only, and the all-in price is $130 a head. That’s great value for money for an incentive group, says Dockside Marketing Coordinator Christine Drivas.

“The dinner represents an exceptional-value night out with five courses prepared by our experienced chefs and paired with award-winning wines. It’ll also be educational and fun in fantastic surroundings.”

It’s the first time Dockside has put on a degustation dinner matched with local wines at Italian Village for the public, says Christine. “So it’s exciting for those who’ll have the opportunity to be there.”

AUD130 per person

Doors open at 7pm and dinner begins at 7.30. Tables are for 10 or 12 guests; for smaller reservations diners will be seated at communal tables.

For enquiries or bookings call 1300 115 116 or visit docksidegroup.com.au. Or to see more details and the menu, go here:

https://bookings.docksidegroup.com.au/events/degustation-dinner-at-italian-village.