Hotels told to honour contracts

The Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) has mandated three to five-star hotels nationwide to honour the commitments that they have signed with tourism companies.
The administration detailed in dispatch No952/TCDL-KS that hotels are required to honour and improve the services that they are contracted to fulfil.
These hotels have also been advised to reduce their prices by cutting costs in business activities.
VNAT released this dispatch after receiving reports from tourism companies that several hotels had broken signed commitments with tourism companies and have raised the prices of rooms.
Luxury hotels in big cities have been known to increase room prices by up to 30 per cent.
The administration has also proposed the provincial departments of culture, sport and tourism to increase inspections of hotels. They also asked the departments to remind the hotels that they should have suitable price policies that are congruent with the "Impressive Viet Nam" campaign, which makes special offers for visitors in Viet Nam.
According to the administration, the number of foreign visitors coming to Viet Nam has dropped since April 2008 due to the global recession.
To improve the situation, the Government has created several priority policies in order to help tourism companies.
Thanks to support from the Government and efforts made by tour companies and hotels, the Impressive Viet Nam campaign has limited the drop in tourists as of late. The number of visitors that came to Viet Nam strongly increased last month and is expected to continue in 2010.
However, after the new regulations were released, several hotels found the new policies difficult to understand.
They said that the Impressive Viet Nam campaign will expire on December 31 and that there has been no sign that the programme will continue in 2010.