Golf course boom in Vietnam as elite swing to impress
HANOI : What do you do if you've already got the BMW with the obligatory dark windows to park behind the iron gates of your substantial villa, and overseas business trips are no longer impressing the neighbours ? Take up golf -- that's what the elite are doing in Vietnam.
Currently, there are only seven golf clubs in the communist nation, where economic growth rates have soared over the past few years, but at least seven more are either under construction or in the pipeline.
The north, however, can only boast one course, Kings Island Golf Resort and Country Club, 35 kilometres (22 miles) west of Hanoi in Ha Tay province.
The rest are located down south, mainly around Ho Chi Minh City, and were built to cater predominantly to the large number of Japanese and South Korean expatriates there.
But the increasing affluence of Vietnam's southern business capital and its conservative political capital Hanoi, where luxury German and Japanese cars are no longer turning heads, has created an ever enlarging pool of wealthy Vietnamese for whom the costs of playing golf are no longer prohibitive.
It is this Hanoi elite that developers are hoping to tap.
"Even though golf is a high class sport, there are more and more rich people in Vietnam," said Dinh Nho Hung, deputy general director of the Tam Dao Joint-Stock Investment Co, which will begin work next month on an 18-hole course around 60 kilometres north of Hanoi in Vinh Phuc province.
"The construction of our golf course will be finished in 2005 and by that time I believe Vietnamese people will be one of our target clients."
Robert Bicknell, operations manager and director of golf at Kings Island where Vietnamese currently make up around 10 percent of its 600 members, concurs.
"There is a prestige attached to playing golf. It is a rich man's sport in any developing country but there is a trickle down effect over the years as incomes change.
"Thailand opened its first courses 40-50 years ago but now nearly everyone can play. In Vietnam there is a developing middle class and soon they will also be able to afford to take up the game. Developers are looking at the long term," he said.
Annual average GDP per capita for the Southeast Asian nation's predominantly rural population of 80 million is a paltry 400 dollars, but this figure is much higher in Vietnam's major cities.
Bicknell also believes the government has cannily recognised that golf courses can play their part in attracting foreign investors needing to provide corporate perks for their expatriate staff.
"It understands the value of golf as a business and investment tool and it can show investors that Vietnam is becoming quite cosmopolitan," he said.
Although there are no official figures, industry experts estimate there are currently only around 600 Vietnamese golfers -- not including caddies who play whenever given the chance -- but say their numbers are swelling each day.
"Vietnamese businessmen seem to be buying up the most memberships nationwide at the moment. They've got the money and regard a membership as a vital business tool," said Bicknell.
To meet Vietnam's rising income levels, Kings Island, which is set in the middle of a natural reservoir and surrounded by towering, majestic hills, is in the process of building another 18 holes as well as a new clubhouse.
But the monopoly the club has enjoyed since 1993 is about to be broken.
The Chi Linh Star Golf and Country Club, around 70 kilometres northeast of Hanoi in Hai Duong province, is scheduled to open the first nine holes of its planned 36-hole development next month.
Another local company has also drawn up plans for a 40-million dollar 36-hole project complete with a conference centre in Vinh Phuc. It, however, remains bogged down in a legal dispute with ethnic minority villagers refusing to relocate, and work is not expected to commence until early next year.
Kings Island's Bicknell says he welcomes the competition.
"We have done 320 rounds in a single day which is absolutely torture. There's enough demand to keep us all happy.
"Furthermore, from a playing perspective it gives golfers more options in terms of courses, and that will force clubs to raise their standards which ultimately benefits everyone," he said.
Agence France Press - October 26, 2003.
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