Standing out from hundreds of resorts in Mui Ne area of Phan Thiet city, Seahorse Resort & Spa, for the past years, has been always in choice of both domestic and foreign visitors to Vietnam’s central coastal land. Vietnam Business Forum interviewed Mr Tran Anh Thi, Managing Director of Seahorse, about its plans for 2012. Ngoc Huong reports.
Could you please provide an overall view of the resort since its establishment?
Seahorse Resort & Spa, which is about 11 kilometres from Phan Thiet city’s northeast, officially opened on April 30, 2004. The resort is located on a large campus with 50 deluxe rooms and 40 bungalows of all kinds. The rooms and bungalows are all designed under Vietnamese architecture manner, but in luxury and comfort. Most rooms are with the view towards sea and decorated with Vietnam’s high-class fine arts and handicrafts, showing visitors local culture but providing them a comfortable space for relaxation. The bungalows stretched along the meandering paths to sea, all meet four-star standards. The open architecture and immense space help to stand out the beauty and luxury of rooms here. Following the increasing demand of Mice tours, Seahorse has also invested to build business centers with capacity of 150-170 seats and equipped lots of conference facilities.
Seahorse Resort & Spa provides tourists with a lot of outdoor entertainment activities and games, helping them to enjoy their stay in nature. Tourists to Seahorse should register for spa services to reduce stress and relax themselves after hard working hours.
After bathing and playing with waves, tourists will be really pleased to enjoy the peaceful time and meals with fresh seafood under the starlit sky.
Not only being chosen by tourists, Seahorse Resort & Spa is also appreciated by the press and culturists through a number of awards. Especially, the two international travel agents, Thomas Cook and Neckemann, selected Seahorse to be the top resort in Mui Ne. Guide magazine awarded Seahorse the title of best service. These awards are significantly spiritual encouragement to the team of 180 staffs working in Seahorse.
How do you assess the operation of Seahorse over the past time? What is the development orientation of tourism in Binh Thuan province in general and in Seahorse in particular?
For me, one of reasons for which tourists choose Seahorse to stay during their holiday in Mui Ne is the good service. All staffs of Seahorse have defined to make the resort the second house of tourists. One of the advantages of Seahorse in particular and of Phan Thiet city in general is that the city is called the resort capital. Currently the provincial authority is outlining a master plan of tourism development. We expect local people and families here all pay attention to tourism and know how to do tourism, so tourists will forthwith remember the land when they have time for holiday.
What countries do foreign tourists to Seahorse mainly come from and what do they think about the resort?
The tourism sector in Mui Ne, Phan Thiet generally has two business seasons. The period from May to the end of October is considered low season because the decrease of foreign visitors. The weather in European countries, especially Nordic ones, at that time is not too cold. This season we mainly focus on Vietnamese tourists who have summer holidays. But, the number is not high and their stay is also not long. The high season is from early November to the end of April when the temperature in European countries like Russia, Germany, Finland, and Sweden can drop to between -15C0 and -20C0. Tourists from such countries often stay in Vietnam for 11 nights on average. Seahorse mainly welcomes tourists from Russia, followed by Finland, Sweden, Germany and some other nationalities.
The requirements of Russian and German tourists are quite high, meaning that they look for the qualified resorts. Seahorse, in fact, meets their requirements for quiet and clean space, lovely view and professional serving manner. Foreign tourists attach much importance to meal and drink and the way to enjoy it.
In Seahorse Resort, staffs are responsible to collect recommendations of tourists when they check out. By doing that, the resort has been improving its serving quality.
Facing current difficulties, which solutions has Seahorse offered to attract more tourists and improve the life of staffs?
Let me call tourism the hospitable sector. In my opinion, for any company the humans always play an important role. With the hospitable sector, they especially contribute to decide the success or failure of each enterprise. Thus, not only in the tense period but also any situation we always identify the prerequisite role and focus on caring their life. In addition, the hospitable sector is not only for today or tomorrow, but for long time. Therefore, it is vital to continuously offer new programs to attract tourists and ensure the life of employees. During the National Assembly XII session, Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung emphasized “to develop fast and firmly, the increase of volume has to connect closely to the improvement of quality, efficiency and competition”. For that reason, we all the more have to pay attention to the staffs. I expect the staffs of Seahorse as well as others in the same sector will be more enthusiastic and responsible to their work to create qualified and sustainable products.
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