Adrian Zecha set to add new hotel in Vietnam

Set to be known as the Azerai La Residence, the 122-room hotel is in Hue, the one-time capital of Vietnam.

Zecha will undertake a rebranding of the hotel and oversee the conclusion of an extensive renovation.

The hotel’s expanded and completely renovated spa now features six treatment rooms and separate wet areas for men and women, and now has a fitness centre.

The hotel’s bar, Le Gouverneur, has been relocated from the rotunda of the historic mansion, while the hotel’s restaurant, Le Parfum, has been refurbished in the Azerai style.

Azerai La Residence joins the 60-room Azerai Can Tho, which Zecha opened on the Mekong last spring, and the plan is to add at least one new hotel every year.

Zecha’s mission is to “present the single-most compelling and elegant accommodation experience in a given locale at an affordable price-point”.

“In Hue, we wanted a hotel that would emerge as the quintessential hospitality experience in the city,” he added.

The hotel is within a 1930s mansion, the former residence of the French Resident Superieure, designed originally in art deco style.

It was opened as a hotel in 2005 following a renovation partnership between a French entrepreneur and the government.

The name of the new hotel brand is derived from Adrian Zecha’s initials and the latter part of a Persian word, caravanserai, which references old inns of the Middle East.

Indonesian-born Zecha was the original founder of Regent International Hotels and Aman.