Located in the Dong Khoi neighbourhood of District 1, on the doorstep of Ho Chi Minh City Hall, the Saigon Notre-Dame Basilica and Ho Chi Minh Museum, the Sheraton is a mere 25 minutes from Ho Chi Minh City airport. Its enviable city centre location means that this hotel is perfect for sightseers and business travellers alike. A well-appointed hotel, it is regarded as the perfect haven for relaxing, whether your day has involved meetings with commercial associates in Ho Chi Minh's business centres, or soaking in the city's numerous visitor attractions.

The Sheraton is renowned for its accommodation, with comfortable guest rooms and suites, and a wide range of contemporary facilities. In fact, there are so many amenities in the hotel itself you may well be tempted to spend a significant portion of your Vietnam holiday simply relaxing here!

What better way to take advantage of the Far Eastern climate than taking time out by the Sheraton's swimming pool? After a few lengths or a gentle splash around, why not take to the loungers on the sun terrace. In addition, the hotel also boasts a fully-equipped health centre with a wide range of gym equipment, and a sauna. When it comes to blissful relaxation, the Sheraton's aqua day spa is where visitors love to be pampered with some head-to-toe indulgence. A variety of beauty treatments are available, ranging from traditional therapies to the highly-recommended Thai massage.

The Sheraton's central location makes it the perfect starting point for a diverse range of city ventures. Whether you wish to indulge your love of oriental cuisine, or your taste for culture and history, there are many places worth visiting within a relatively short radius.

Facilities

Are 470 rooms and suites hotel. These are divided between its main tower, and the luxurious 20 five-storey grand tower. All rooms are fully air-conditioned and contain 42-inch screen LCD TVs, DVD players, high-speed web access, a mini bar, a telephone, an electronic safe, and ironing facilities. In addition, executive suites feature BOSE surround-sound, a complimentary iPod complete with docking station and mobile phone rental.

The hotel also boasts some of the best recreational spots in the city, with an outdoor wine bar on its level 23 – a venue consistently voted as one of Ho Chi Minh's top ten facilities. This bar has an international-class wine menu, not to mention stunning views over the city. The hotel's Signature Restaurant offers a range of dishes, both local, Asian and world-wide, and makes the perfect location for celebrating any occasion. If you've just booked a table for a quiet, romantic dinner, don't be too put off if one of the other tables is hosting a birthday celebration. Experiencing Vietnamese festivities at first-hand will be a holiday memory for you to cherish.

Specialities on offer at the nearby Li Bai Chinese Restaurant include dim sum, as well as a range of mouth-watering Cantonese favourites.

Altogether eight restaurants and bars situated in the Sheraton. These range from restaurants to lighter snack facilities, such as Mojo, where you can enjoy pizzas and other light refreshments. Nightspot offers international bands on a daily basis.

The Grand is one of the country's oldest and most respected hotels, having kept its customers satisfied for over a century and a half. Opening in Ho Chi Minh City in the 1930s, it provides modern travellers with an oasis of colonial-era elegance, slap bang in the middle of bustling modern streets.

Amongst the many traits responsible for this hotel's continuing popularity is its sheer accessibility. It lies within convenient walking distance of the city's riverside area, as well as its major entertainment and commercial centres. The Grand's reputation for superb hospitality means that, as well as welcoming new arrivals, there are many guests who continue to return here.

The hotel's upper floors are renowned for their plush accommodation. There is a luxury wing here, containing deluxe rooms. These fabulously appointed rooms offer superb views of the courts below. They also boast marble bathrooms, king-size or twin beds, and free Wi-Fi. There is also an outdoor pool and spa. When it comes to pampering, the Grand offers signature treatments. If you do happen to book into the Grand, then one of the highlights of your Vietnam holiday will undoubtedly be soaking up the city's unique ambience while dining at the Grand Café Rooftop Restaurant.

Getting there

Upon arrival at Ho Chi Minh City airport, transfer time from checkout to hotel is just under half an hour. You will find to the hotel makes a convenient location, given its central proximity to so much of what the city has to offer. What are your reasons for visiting Vietnam are purely for pleasure, or for business meetings, you won't have to spend much time getting to your respective destinations once you depart the beautiful colonial building each day.

Facilities

The rooms in the Grand occupy one building that is built on two wings, and 16 floors. Each of these rooms possesses a marble bathroom, complete with a bath and separate shower. The rooms are fully air-conditioned and come with a TV containing a full complement of satellite channels. Other facilities on offer include free Wi-Fi, a telephone, a minibar, a safety deposit box, a desk with stationery, and tea and coffee making facilities. The deluxe rooms that are situated on the hotel's upper floor include 32 m² of living space and a view of the inner court below. Here the sleeping facilities include either one king size bed or twin beds that will sleep maximum of two adults or one adult and one child up to the age 11. There are senior deluxe rooms which offer even more living space, as well as executive deluxe rooms located on the first to third of the ‘Ancient Wing' offering 40 m² of space.

As well as a pool and spa, there is a jacuzzi and a hair salon.

Restaurants

The rooftop restaurant and bar is open daily. from 7:30 am until 11 pm. There is a special recipe barbecue and grill cuisine on offer, with live music providing the background ambience. The Chez-Nous is open from 6 am until 10 pm. This serves a breakfast buffet, lunch and dinner. Bar Des Ami opens from 7am until 10pm, with a poolside bar. D'Palm Club, open 10 am until 2 am, is a luxury casino and bar.

The ASEAN Foundation and SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) today announced a strategic partnership to create positive social impact in South East Asia, including social enterprises in Vietnam. This joint effort will focus on areas of Education, Volunteerism and Entrepreneurship. Through this partnership, the ASEAN Foundation and SAP aim to support the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in building a cohesive regional community and deliver inclusively-shared economic benefits by encouraging strategic and innovative participation of youths and social entrepreneurs.

The Memorandum of Understanding between the two organisations is a part of SAP's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policy to equip youths with the skills they need to tackle society's problems and thrive in the digital economy; build the capacity of innovative social enterprises that put young people on the path to successful careers and build a skilled workforce for the IT sector with training and workforce development programmes. Key initiatives that will be executed under this agreement will focus on driving digital literacy to support sustainable growth for the communities that the programmes aim to benefit.

"A sustainable ASEAN community lies in the hands of ASEAN's youth. I believe that our joint initiatives with SAP will increase the involvement of ASEAN youths in national and regional activities to give them an opportunity to actively contribute to the ASEAN community," says Elaine Tan, the Executive Director of the ASEAN Foundation.

Youth empowerment has been a salient topic in ASEAN since the Declaration of Principles to Strengthen ASEAN Collaboration on Youth that was presented in Bangkok in 1983. "The three initiatives under the ASEAN Foundation and SAP partnership have touched upon five priority focus of the most recent ASEAN Work Plan on Youth 2016-2020 which include youth entrepreneurship, youth employment, youth awareness, youth volunteerism and leadership, as well as youth resilience," Elaine added.

"ASEAN represents not just one economic community; it also represents one social community. As ASEAN celebrates 50 years of deepening unity and rising prosperity this year, we are excited with the opportunities that are in store in this Growth Frontier region. With almost half of the region's population being under 30 years of age by 2020, there is a growing pool of talent that we can invest in and work with for a better future. Through our joint initiatives with ASEAN Foundation, we aim to help prepare young people for the digital economy and support ASEAN drive sustainable socio-economic growth in the Fourth Industrial Revolution," said Mr. Scott Russell, President and Managing Director, SAP South East Asia.

He added, "SAP's vision is to help the world run better and improve people's lives. This is our enduring cause. In service to this higher purpose, we are investing efforts in our Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programme to equip youths with the skills they need to tackle society's problems and thrive in the digital economy. I believe that this partnership will help scale our CSR efforts to create greater reach and positively impact lives in this region".

Under this agreement, the ASEAN Foundation and SAP will roll out three initiatives in 2017 to address the ASEAN's economic, environmental, and societal issues, through three focus areas of education, volunteerism and entrepreneurship.

Education

Targeting tertiary students across all 10 ASEAN member states from any discipline, this data analytics competition -- "ASEAN Data Science Explorers" aims to enhance awareness and appreciation of the ASEAN community amongst young people through digital literacy intervention. By learning and using the SAP BusinessObjects Cloud tool, the initiative encourages participants to deliver data-driven insights for ASEAN across six United Nation (UN) Sustainable Development Goals, namely (1) good health and well-being, (2) quality education, (3) gender equality, (4) clean water and sanitation, (5) decent work and economic growth, and (6) sustainable cities and communities. The competition will be organized across all ASEAN member states with a regional final taking place in Jakarta, Indonesia in November this year.

Volunteerism

In collaboration with United Nations Volunteers (UNV) programme and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany, ASEAN Secretariat, ASEAN Foundation and SAP along with other partners have launched the Youth Volunteering Innovation Challenge (YVIC) in ASEAN. Under the theme "Impact ASEAN", the initiative supports young volunteers throughout the ASEAN countries in their journey to catalyze youth-led innovation for social impact and sustainable development. YVIC will provide entrepreneurship knowledge and skills through national workshops. The national workshop winners will be awarded micro-grants to prototype their ideas and later participate in the regional mentorship orientation in Bangkok, Thailand. In addition, employees from SAP will be volunteering their time to provide guidance and support to refine and scale up the youth's Impact Projects.

Entrepreneurship

Through structured capacity building and mentoring initiatives planned through local and overseas missions, high performing employees from SAP will support social impact intermediaries through mentoring and pro-bono consulting. The programme in association with several partners will impact close to 20 social enterprises across Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam in 2017.

About ASEAN Foundation

Three decades after ASEAN was established, ASEAN leaders recognised that: there remained inadequate shared prosperity, ASEAN awareness and contact among people of ASEAN. It was of this concern that ASEAN leaders established ASEAN Foundation during ASEAN's 30th Anniversary Commemorative Summit in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia on 15 December 1997. ASEAN Foundation is an organisation from and for the people of ASEAN. The Foundation exists because of one vision: to build a cohesive and prosperous ASEAN Community. As an ASEAN's body, the Foundation is tasked to support ASEAN mainly in promoting awareness, identity, interaction and development of the people of ASEAN. For more info about the ASEAN Foundation, visit: www.aseanfoundation.org

About SAP

As market leader in enterprise application software, SAP (NYSE: SAP) helps companies of all sizes and industries run better. From back office to boardroom, warehouse to storefront, desktop to mobile device -- SAP empowers people and organizations to work together more efficiently and use business insight more effectively to stay ahead of the competition. SAP applications and services enable more than 350,000 business and public sector customers to operate profitably, adapt continuously, and grow sustainably. For more information, visit www.sap.com.

There are many ways to explore the hinterland of Vietnam's lush Mekong Delta. Tours of this vicinity range from luxurious boat cruises to cycle tours to cross-country hiking. The latter are popular because the terrain is quite flat, and the roads are all in reasonable condition. But because the whole of the southwestern region of the country is criss-crossed by the Mekong's nine main tributaries and various canals, travelling by boat is undoubtedly the best way to visit the delta.

The good news for cyclists and hikers is that a large number of the passenger boats and cruise ships go out of their way to cater for these modes of transport. They offer facilities that allow cyclists or bakers to bring their vehicles on board, allowing them to use boats to navigate the more awkward parts of the waterlogged landscape. Many of the traditional sampans will also welcome bicycles on-board their little vessels, thus making allowances for the fact that the bike remains the staple form of transport in Vietnam – even in areas where there are abundant rivers and canals!

Much of the Mekong Delta gives the impression of having frozen in time. Sampans still float gracefully along the rivers, with fishermen persisting in their centuries old traditions. Farmers still use water buffalo to help them cultivate the rice fields. Throughout the dense covering of trees and mangroves, you will glimpse ancient pagodas and temples.

The actual vessels plying their trade on this river vary considerably. As mentioned, there are small sampans that allow you to gain an authentic feel for the river as you slowly coast along, a matter of inches above the rippling surface. Closer to the Gulf of Thailand, there are large ocean-going cruise ships, complete with bars and five star restaurants. The latter is surely one of the best ways to view life on the Mekong Delta. As you take your comfortable seat in the panoramic bar, you can enjoy cocktails while watching the world go by.

The more intrepid visitors often take the opportunity to actually get into the Mekong River. Scuba diving is very popular in many Vietnamese locations, but especially the Mekong Delta resorts, or the beaches south of Ho Chi Minh City, and around the town of Vung Tau. There are many interesting indigenous species of wildlife that can be viewed in the delta, although the waters can be fairly muddy, so the serious scuba divers tend to gravitate further north, especially to Ha Long Bay.

The costal resorts cater for a wide variety of activities. Scuba diving is just one of these; your hotels will also be able to point you in the direction of a range of watersports. If you would prefer to simply relax on the beach, then there are miles and miles of golden sands to be enjoyed. Golf is also available at the Paradise Golf Resort. One of Vietnam's best golf courses, this boasts 27 holes. Many of these are played while overlooking the azure grandeur of the South China Sea.