Promotion follows keynote address by Peter Arnett at 50th anniversary event
In recognition of its Golden Jubilee, the Caravelle Hotel has extended its half-price room rate promotion through June.
The celebratory discount will be in effect for all bookings made directly with the hotel (+84 8 3823 4999, www.caravellehotel.com) through June 30. No refunds or cancellations are possible once the booking is complete.
“It’s a nostalgic gesture,” said John Gardner, general manager of the Caravelle. “We wanted to bring people back in time, as we journey back in time to remember the hotel’s history, and what better way to do that than with old-fashioned price points.”
The discount is based on published rates and all booked stays must be complete by Dec. 31, 2009. Reservations will be subject to availability.
On May 8, the Caravelle celebrated 50 years on Saigon’s Lam Son Square with an anniversary celebration in the hotel ballroom. Renowned AP and CNN correspondent Peter Arnett delivered the keynote address at the anniversary event.
“It was the most famous hotel in which I had ever stayed in when I first came to Saigon 47 years ago as a kid reporter,” Arnett said at the event. “I met famous newsworthy visitors rooming here… including the great aviation pioneer Charles Lindberg.”
No tired old reflection of its former self, the Caravelle today stands as a beacon of restoration. As it made its dramatic comeback in 1998, with the refurbishment of the original 10-story, building and the complement of a 24-story tower, so too was Saigon in the midst of doi moi, or economic renovation.
While the hotel soared to new heights, Ho Chi Minh City asserted itself as one of Southeast Asia’s most dynamic cities. Today, the Caravelle ranks as one of the country’s most prestigious hotels. Its rooftop bar is one of Saigon’s most popular, as it was during the war.
Opened in 1959, the Caravelle won enduring fame during the American War (known as the Vietnam War in the West) when correspondents watched the conflict erupt on the fringes of the city from the hotel’s rooftop terrace and filed stories from bureaus located within and around the hotel.
In 1975, the hotel fell under state control and into a gradual state of disrepair as Vietnam muddled through economic degradation brought on by a U.S.-led trade embargo and fiscal policies that were relieved by government-sponsored changes in 1986.
In March of 1992, the hotel’s then owner, Saigon Tourist, teamed with Chains International Hotels Management Singapore Pte. Ltd as a joint investment partner in a new company called Chains Caravelle Hotel Joint Venture Company Limited that sought to revive the 86-room landmark property, then known as the Doc Lap (Independence) Hotel.
Over the past several years, the hotel has completely revamped its ground-floor dining venue as Nineteen, which ranks today as one of the city’s most chic and elaborate buffets. The signature restaurant was recast as Reflections, and the rooftop terrace has enjoyed a surge of popularity as one of the premier rooftop bars anywhere.
