A Tết pricing playbook

Tết Nguyên Đán — the Vietnamese lunar new year — is the single biggest annual demand event in the Vietnamese hospitality market. It moves demand between cities, between segments, and between rate plans in a way no other holiday does. This note is a playbook for city hotels loading their SiteMinder rate plans for the season.

§ 01The demand shape

Roughly two weeks before Tết, urban demand in Sài Gòn and Hà Nội collapses — the domestic segment travels home to the provinces or leaves the country entirely. In the same window, demand in resort destinations (Đà Nẵng, Hội An, Nha Trang, Phú Quốc) peaks. Then, on Tết day itself and for the following four days, urban demand is at an annual floor; resort demand is at an annual ceiling.

Post-Tết — from roughly day five onward — urban demand recovers rapidly, driven by inbound corporate travellers returning to work in Sài Gòn District 1 and Hà Nội Hoàn Kiếm. Resort demand tapers.

§ 02Loading your SiteMinder rate plans

The mistake we see most often is a single rate plan applied uniformly through the Tết window. It leaves money on the table on both sides — you underprice into the resort peak, and you overprice into the urban trough.

The playbook is to break the Tết window into three phases and load a distinct rate plan for each:

1. Pre-Tết (T-14 to T-7). City rates: soft, but not floor-level. Resort rates: firm, with minimum stay of three nights.
2. Tết peak (T-6 to T+4). City rates: at floor, with generous cancellation terms to catch late corporate demand. Resort rates: at annual ceiling, with strict cancellation and minimum stay of five nights.
3. Post-Tết (T+5 to T+14). City rates: recovering fast, with corporate rate plans re-activated. Resort rates: tapering, with promotional shoulder-season offers.

Our Revenue Copilot VN module models this shape automatically from your last three years of SiteMinder data and proposes daily rate adjustments per phase, per room type. Nothing is applied without your revenue manager's approval.

§ 03Distribution mix for Tết

Domestic OTAs (Traveloka, Mytour, iVIVU) dominate Tết bookings for the resort peak. International OTAs (Booking.com, Agoda) matter more for the resort peak in Phú Quốc and Đà Nẵng, where inbound tourism from Korea, China and Australia is significant. Direct booking through your Vietnamese-language site — with MoMo and VNPay guarantees — is the highest-margin channel for the pre-Tết and post-Tết phases in city hotels.

§ 04Where to start

Read the Revenue Copilot VN module page. Book a call with our revenue-management team in Sài Gòn in October or November of the year preceding the Tết you are planning for. Load the three rate plans by mid-December. Monitor pickup daily through the Tết window.