New World Saigon, a five-star hotel in Ho Chi Minh City, has partnered with Vietnamese chocolate maker Marou. The collaboration weaves Marou into nearly every corner of a stay — room amenities, the lobby, restaurants, the retail corner, and co-developed products — and began in June. Guests arriving from abroad without knowing Vietnam even grows cacao hear about its origins and take home a bar of chocolate they've come to like — the hotel has designed that entire flow itself.
This piece is for travelers and residents in Vietnam wondering what to bring home, especially anyone hunting for a gift. Without a trip to the airport duty-free shop or Ben Thanh Market's stalls, there's now a stronger path to encountering "genuine Vietnamese souvenirs" right inside the hotel you're staying at.
New World links Marou from the guest room all the way to the register
Rather than a one-off campaign, this collaboration installs Marou permanently across multiple touchpoints of the stay. Rooms, the lobby, restaurants, retail, and products the two companies made together — guests encounter Marou's chocolate again and again during their stay. Behind it is New World's regional brand team, which restructured what used to be a seasonal one-off promotion into a permanent experience built around introducing the origin.
The aim is clear. International guests who arrive knowing almost nothing about Vietnamese cacao get to know the taste during their stay, hear about where it comes from, and pick up related products on their way out. Rather than "selling" souvenirs, it's designed to have guests naturally take them home as an extension of the experience. For Japanese travelers, it means one more place to check the taste and story before reaching for airport souvenirs chosen on price alone.
Packaging wrapped in do paper and cacao husk changes what the souvenir means
What catches the eye is the packaging the two companies created together. Vietnam's traditional "do paper" is woven with fiber from the cacao husks left over from chocolate production. Husks that would otherwise be discarded are reborn as wrapping paper, and the story of where and how the chocolate was made lives right in the packaging itself. It's designed so the moment the recipient looks at the wrapping, the origin comes through.
As a gift, this extra touch matters. It's not just the taste inside — you hand over the feel of the wrapping and the origin of the material along with it. How Vietnamese souvenirs are chosen is shifting from cheapness and quantity toward the story of the origin and the maker. The same shift is happening with coffee, where beans from Buon Ma Thuot cross the ocean toour piece on how Vietnamese souvenir choices are changing— it's part of the same story.
Marou, selecting cacao bean by bean from six southern provinces, is even seen in Japanese shops
Marou was founded in Ho Chi Minh City in 2011 by two Frenchmen, Samuel Maruta and Vincent Mourou. They source cacao beans, selected bag by bag, from six southern provinces: Dak Lak, Lam Dong, Dong Nai, Ba Ria, Tien Giang, and Ben Tre. Aroma and acidity differ by province, and the beans are sold as single-origin bars named after their province. With names like Ba Ria 76% and Vietnam 100%, you can taste-compare them much like comparing different coffee origins.
It's also carried in Japanese import food shops and online, so some people will recognize the name. That's exactly why being able to taste the real thing at the hotel before buying lowers the bar for choosing a souvenir. Unlike gambling on an unfamiliar box at the airport, you can choose with the recipient in mind after confirming the taste yourself. Marou is also at the forefront of Vietnamese brands expanding overseas, witha move to expand storesreaching Singapore's Changi Airport too. The more the name is seen abroad, the better it reads as a gift.
RauCycle's $10,000 and 22 scholarships — a way of earning that returns money to the community
New World has built up ties with the community beyond Marou too. For RauCycle, timed to Earth Day, leftover vegetables were handed to young artists who created six lobby pieces, and in response to the buzz, all of them sold for a combined total of over $10,000, with the proceeds donated to three local and environmental organizations. An art exhibition called H.U.E. ultimately funded 22 scholarships. Rather than mere in-house decoration, it functions as a mechanism that returns money and opportunity to the community.
Vo Khanh Duy, who led Asia-Pacific marketing at the hotel, says that what will set hotels apart going forward isn't talking about local culture more, but building lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with the community. The Marou partnership, too, is positioned not as a one-off retail promotion but as building a relationship where the origin, guests, and the hotel keep engaging with each other. From a traveler's perspective, a quality souvenir is a byproduct of that relationship.
How to actually find Vietnamese souvenirs at the hotel
- Where: The lobby and retail corner of New World Saigon Hotel (District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, right by Ben Thanh Market). The in-house shop can be browsed even without staying overnight.
- What you can buy: Marou's single-origin bars and products co-developed by the two companies. A tasting gift box packed with different provinces suits gift-giving.
- Looking around town: Also available at Maison Marou boutiques and cafés, and at kiosks in major airports. Online purchase is possible too.
- Choosing a gift: If you can't tell what the recipient likes, a tasting set combining different origins in one box rarely misses. If you're bringing bars home in summer, prepare an insulated bag against the heat.
Try a piece in the lobby, then buy a box of whichever province's chocolate you liked. The unit price runs higher than Ben Thanh's goods, but a bar of Ba Ria or Ben Tre wrapped in do paper lets you hand over the origin itself with it. Near Mid-Autumn Festival, mooncakes already line the shelves early, soour piece on Vietnam's gift-giving culturepairing it with that makes it fit nicely as a seasonal item too. Next time you stay in Ho Chi Minh City, start looking for souvenirs from the hotel lobby on day one, not the airport on the last day.
