Vietnam Coast · Phan Thiet · For the Investor & the Operator

The Expressway Trade

Vietnam Coast Series · Issue · September 2026 · 11-minute read

In April 2023 an expressway quietly changed the economics of Vietnam’s oldest resort strip: Dau Giay–Phan Thiet cut the drive from Ho Chi Minh City to Mui Ne from four and a half hours to about two. A 10-kilometre coastline built for Russian winterers found itself inside the weekend radius of a ten-million-person megacity. Three years on, the trade is working — and 2026 put Mui Ne on the world’s trending-destination lists.

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The Verdict. Phan Thiet is Vietnam’s cleanest infrastructure-alpha story: the same sand, the same wind, two hours closer to the money. Weekend occupancy runs at ~80% with resorts booked a month out for holidays; the international layer (Russians returning, Europeans, Koreans) stacks on top of a domestic base that no longer needs a flight. The ceiling is product age — the strip’s 2000s-era resorts are one renovation cycle from a real rate ladder.

01 — Two hours from ten million

The Dau Giay–Phan Thiet expressway did for Binh Thuan what a runway does for an island: it collapsed distance. From opening week, the pattern was set — resorts like Movenpick and Radisson full, holiday bookings a month deep, Ho Chi Minh City families treating Mui Ne as a two-hour extension of home. Binh Thuan welcomed more than 805,000 visitors in a single month soon after, +66% year on year.

The structural change is the demand base. A drive-to market is weather-proof in ways fly-to markets are not: no charter economics, no visa queues, no long-haul yields to manage. The strip’s ~80% weekend occupancy is built on the domestic family — and every additional international guest is margin, not survival.

The trending list. In April 2026 Mui Ne was named among the world’s top-10 trending destinations for personalised travel experiences — leisure retreats to adventure sports. The province’s planning targets tourism revenue of 50 trillion VND by 2030, double the 2025 plan.

02 — The Russian village, second act

Mui Ne’s international identity was Russian before it was anything else: by the early 2010s Russians made up 30–40% of the province’s foreign visitors, Ham Tien’s main street ran on Cyrillic signage, and long-stay winterers held occupancy at 80–100% through the season. When Cam Ranh and Phu Quoc opened their airports, the charters bypassed Mui Ne — Russian arrivals fell 28% in months and the "Russian village" hollowed out.

2025–26 is the second act. Russia is Vietnam’s fastest-growing major market (1M+ arrivals in eight months, +166%), and the returning flow is splitting three ways: Nha Trang, Phu Quoc — and the old favourite. What returns to Mui Ne now is the higher-yield version: independent travellers and winterers stacking on top of the expressway’s domestic base, plus Europeans, Australians and Koreans the strip never used to see.

~2 hrs HCMC → Mui Ne by expressway — was 4.5
~80% weekend occupancy on the Ham Tien–Mui Ne strip
+66% Binh Thuan visitor growth in the expressway’s opening window
50T VND provincial tourism revenue target, 2030 — 2× the 2025 plan

Phan Thiet tiers, season 2026–27

Branded strip (Movenpick, Radisson)weekend sell-outs; HCMC corporate and events filling midweek
The Anam & boutique tierSLH flag — international yield, expat and European mix
Legacy 2000s resortsfull at weekends, discounted midweek — renovation queue
Kite-surf economyRussian winterers returning; thin Nov–Mar outside the wind scene

03 — What the trade buys

The investment shape is a renovation play, not a land play. The strip is fully built and largely unbranded; the gap between the Anam (Small Luxury Hotels) and the legacy 2000s stock is the rate ladder waiting to be climbed. Assets that complete a repositioning cycle capture both the expressway weekend and the returning international winter — without betting on either alone.

Risks: the domestic engine is cyclical (a Vietnamese consumer slowdown hits Monday morning, not next quarter); the Russian recovery is shared with better-aired competitors; and the product gap is real — nightlife, dining and secondary infrastructure still trail the resort hardware. Phan Thiet’s plan is volume-with-value: 50 trillion VND by 2030 assumes the strip climbs a tier.

Bull case

· Expressway economics are permanent — distance does not re-inflate
· Domestic megacity base + returning Russians + trending-list visibility
· Fully built strip = renovation alpha, not construction risk
· Kite/wind-sport niche gives a global identity no Vietnamese rival has

Bear case

· Product age — the legacy stock discounts the whole strip’s rate image
· Domestic dependence cuts both ways in a consumer downturn
· No airport of its own; Cam Ranh and the new Phan Thiet field remain secondary
· International recovery shared with Nha Trang and Phu Quoc, not exclusive

04 — The verdict on the strip

Phan Thiet’s story is the simplest on the Vietnamese coast: a road shortened, a megacity arrived, and an old Russian beach got a second act. It will never be Phu Quoc — no island mythology, no mega-projects — and that is precisely the trade: priced like a drive-to, earning like a hybrid.

Verdict. Buy the renovation cycle on the branded strip; the expressway guarantees the floor and the Russian second act is the option on top. Two hours from ten million people is the most durable competitive moat on Vietnam’s coast — the only question is who refurbishes the 2000s stock first.

Sources: Binh Thuan Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism; SGGP and TTG Asia reporting on the Dau Giay–Phan Thiet expressway effect; Tuoi Tre News on the Mui Ne Russian market; provincial tourism master-plan targets (VND 50 trillion by 2030); VietnamPlus trending-destination listing (April 2026). Figures are publicly reported, directional where noted. Verified as of 25 September 2026.

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