InterContinental Asiana Saigon in downtown HCM City has recruited 452 staff out of the 550 needed for the inauguration scheduled for early September.

Around 430 of the employees are Vietnamese, InterContinental Asiana Saigon said in a statement issued yesterday.

"We are well advanced in our recruitment process of our Vietnamese team that will be trained to serve our guests from our first opening day," said Philip Riley, InterContinental Hotels Group's regional general manager for Vietnam.

"We are still expanding our team so more Vietnamese people will have the opportunity to join

InterContinental Asiana Saigon," Riley said in the statement.

An intensive training programme on customer care, IHG leadership competencies, managing performance and development is being conducted for the employees this month and next as part of a strategy to support them to develop their career at the group.

Riley noted by building up a high quality team, InterContinental Asiana Saigon had contributed to boosting the current Vietnamese tourism labour market.

Tourism is a $4.5 billionindustry in Vietnam and accounts for 11 percent of the country's total employment, according to Tourism Working Group under the Vietnam Business Forum.

Figures of the Ministry of Labour Invalids and Social Affairs show Vietnam has a current workforce of around 45 million people and more than one million people join the market every year.

Riley told the Daily earlier this year InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) was expected to open the second luxury 305-room hotel in Vietnam in early September, or less than two years after the first hotel was inaugurated in Hanoi.

The new InterContinental hotel on the comer of Le Duan and Hai Ba Trung streets in District 1 has a 600�seat ballroom, meeting rooms, restaurants, spa and other facilities.

Riley said IHG would manage some 10propertiesin Vietnam in the next five years, and would introduce more brands including business-focus Crowne Plaza, the world-famous Holiday Inn in addition to InterContinental.