Together with his brothers and sisters he spent his childhood helping his parents peel lotus seeds. But as tourism in Hoi An slowly started to develop, the young Thanh began to dream. Seeing hotels open their doors in his hometown, he dreamt about opening his own one day. From when he was 12 years old Thanh devoted his life to realizing his dream. Throughout his school years Thanh kept dreaming. A
nd after he finished his education he did all kinds of jobs to earn a living and to accumulate money to build his hotel. But he soon realized that he wasn’t earning enough. To improve his opportunities, in 1997 Thanh went to Ho Chi Minh City to attend an electronics course. The following year turned out to be a crucial year in his life. He returned to Hoi An and opened his first business, a shop selling and repairing electronic equipment. But more importantly, during this time he again met a young woman named Son, whom he had first met in 1990. Son was the woman destined to become Thanh’s wife. Thanh and Son are both hard-working people who care about their families. So in the year 2000, when they decided to get married, they didn’t want to burden their families with the costs. They were proud to be able to finance their wedding party by themselves. But their now shared dream of a hotel remained out of reach. While Thanh continued his electronics business Son opened a hair salon. But as the millennium grew to a close, the number of foreign tourists that visited Hoi An increased. Thanh and Son saw the opportunity to get closer to realizing their dream. They closed the electronics shop and hair salon and the couple took their first step into the tourism business when they opened their souvenir shop named Son Trang, after Thanh’s wife. Son also happens to mean ‘rich and gold’ and it signifies luck and a smooth start. One of the shop’s special products was brocade, which proved to be popular with the customers but which was also sold to smaller businesses. With the change in Thanh and Son’s careers their private life also changed. In 2004 they were blessed with the birth of a daughter, followed in 2008 by the birth of a son. The years that followed the happy family prospered. In 2012 Thanh and Son opened two more shops and by 2016 they ran four shops. Their dream of opening their own hotel finally appeared to come within reach and they bought two plots of land on Dao Duy Tu Street. But then times became harder and Thanh and Son were forced to reduce their number of shops to only two. Yet, in spite of this decline in their fortune, in 2017 Thanh and Son decided to stick to their plan and started the construction of their first hotel. Like their souvenir shops the hotel also bears the name of Thanh’s wife, Son Trang. It is situated conveniently near the ancient town of Hoi An on 26 Dao Duy Tu Street. The following year Son Trang Hotel opened its doors to welcome its first guests. Thanh’s dream, which he had harboured since he was a young boy, was realized thanks to the persistence and hard work of him and his wife. But one dream was quickly followed by another and at the end of 2018, as Son Trang Hotel was doing good business, Thanh and Son decided to close their two remaining souvenir shops and start the construction of their second hotel. Everything seemed to go perfect for Thanh and Son. But then the Covid pandemic threw a spanner in the works. Their plans had to be put on hold as times in Hoi An and the rest of the world became very hard. They stopped all work on their latest project and tried to weather the storm. It was only in 2022 that construction on the couple’s second hotel could continue. They worked hard and by the end of July preparations for the opening of Son Hoi An Boutique Hotel & Spa were being made. The hotel façade is decorated with vibrant colors. At the entrance visitors will see a small lotus pond. The lotus flower is not only a symbol of Vietnam, it also reminds Thanh of his childhood when he used to peel lotus seeds. The lotus pond is his way to show his gratitude to his parents who worked so hard to raise their 13 children and who are still alive to see their second-youngest child realize his dream. An interesting personal detail is the logo of Son Hoi An Boutique Hotel & Spa. Since Vietnamese schoolchildren are taught to be right-handed, Bui Tien Thanh is one of the country’s rare left-handed people. The hotel’s logo refers to this in the form of Thanh’s left thumbprint. All rooms at Son Hoi An Boutique Hotel & Spa are designed with a customer fingerprint system at the door. If guests agree, Thanh and Son will preserve their fingerprints and information in their guest book. This is their way to remember their guests’ visit to Hoi An and their hotel. On the 18th of August 2022 the first guests checked into Son Hoi An Boutique Hotel & Spa. A new journey in the lives of Thanh and Son has just begun.
