Fifty years after opening as the ne plus ultra of upscale accommodation in Vietnam, the Caravelle Hotel has set the stage for an anniversary celebration in May. On May 8, the Caravelle will recognize its 50 years on Saigon’s Lam Son Square with an anniversary cocktail celebration in the hotel ballroom. Renowned wartime journalist and Pulitzer-prize winner Peter Arnett will keynote the anniversary celebration, accompanied by Robert Wiener, another wartime journalist who won later fame as the author of Live from Baghdad. At the same time, the hotel will mock up the Opera Room as Rue Catinat (now Dong Khoi Street) as it looked in the 1960s.

In concert, the hotel’s flagship restaurant, Reflections, has worked up a special ‘Champs-Elysees’ menu of French cuisine Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, the hotel’s flagship restaurant was the Champs-Elysees. For hotel bookings made in May, the hotel will cut its room rate by 50% through 31 December 2009.
 
“Fifty years ago, we opened and immediately set the standard as the most memorable, most talked-about hospitality experience in Saigon,” said John Gardner, general manager of the hotel. “You could say the exact same thing about this hotel today.”

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.

This year, the hotel plans to celebrate the storied history of the hotel with publication of a book that details the comings and goings of the hotel’s guests, and the ups and downs of the hotel through the 1960s and 1970s.

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 was renamed the Doc Lap (Independence) Hotel and won a second ‘Long Service Medal’ by the Vietnamese government. In October of 1992, Saigon Tourist Holding Company teamed with Glynhill Investment Vietnam (Lai Sun - Hong Kong & Keck Seng - Singapore) as a joint investment partner in a new company called Chains Caravelle Hotel Joint Venture Company and sought revival for the landmark property.

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 anywhee.
 
From May 5th to 18th, the Caravelle’s Champs-Elysees menu will offer diners a taste of the Caravelle’s culinary heritage. The menu leads off with a foie gras, moves on to bouillabaisse and then offers up either a rouget or coq au vin - all French classics. The meal concludes with ‘L’Opera,’ an almond biscuit with chocolate and butter cream, with Lavazza coffee or Dammann teas, as well as an assortment of sweets. In addition to the booking and meal promotion, the Caravelle’s bartenders have concocted the ‘Caravelle Cowboy,’ a mix of champagne, wild berries and gold leaf. The special drink will be on offer through the month of May.