Many tour organizers and hotels have demanded permission to list prices for their services in foreign currencies, an act that is strictly prohibited by the State Bank of Vietnam.
Even if prices are listed in foreign currencies, namely the US dollar or Euro, all payments will be made in the dong, as per law, the businesses voiced at a tourism meeting held yesterday by the Ho Chi Minh City Tourism Association.
In Vietnam, all transactions, payments, advertisements and price listings are banned from being conducted or quoted in foreign currencies, except those carried out by banks, airports, and customs agencies.
The tourism and hotel businesses called on the government to lift the ban for them, saying it will help provide more convenience for international customers when using their services.
If they are still not permitted to list prices in foreign currencies, the businesses demand that they be allowed to put the equivalent prices in foreign currencies in parentheses next to those listed in dong.
In fact, many partners from Japan and the EU have refused to finalize transactions that are made in VND, they said.
“The government should loosen their management on the price listing in foreign currencies for the tourism and hotel industries,” urged Tu Quy Thanh, director of the Travelink travel agency.
“Travel agencies and hotels will assure that all payments will be conducted via the domestic currency in accordance with the regulations.”
Also at the meeting, many travel agencies and hotels expressed concern over the case of the latest violator of this regulation — the joint-venture Thong Nhat Metropole Hotel Co Ltd, which runs the Hanoi Sofitel Metropole Hotel.
The company was last week fined VND500 million (US$24,000) by the central bank for listing prices in its restaurant and bar menus in US dollars, and signed space rental contracts with local customers in the currency as well.
Nguyen Hoang Anh Phi, director of Saigon Hotel in District 1, said that although his institution has carefully removed all of the prices listed in US dollars from its services, it has recently received a warning from inspectors, who found $5-meal ads posted in the hotel’s elevator.
However, Phi added, many foreign partners have refused to ink contracts with his hotel, since they did not know the equivalent values of the prices listed in dong on the contracts.
“We could not put the equivalent prices in US dollars in the contract, even in parentheses, for fear of breaching the law,” Phi was quoted by the Saigon Times Online as saying.
For her part, Nguyen Thi Xuan Hong, director of the Vien Dong Hotel, said her receptionists always get nervous whenever a foreign guest comes to ask for the accommodation fees.
Customers usually ask the receptionists to list room prices in US dollars since they cannot understand the quoted price and find it hard to calculate with the seven-digit prices in VND, Hong said.
“However, our employees are afraid of being caught by the authorities if they do so,” she said.
Hong added that the hotel also has to spend a lot of time on updating prices listed in the dong on its website in accordance with the daily fluctuations of foreign exchange rates.
Meanwhile Thanh, of Travelink, said the company’s foreign partners always request it to quote prices in US dollars in their transactions, especially those made via email.
“If such emails are detected by the authorities, we will be fined,” Thanh said.
He added that foreign tourists find it hard to understand why prices of tour packages intended for them are quoted in Vietnamese dong.
“Some even claim that Vietnamese travel agencies do not know how to do business appropriately by listing prices of international services in their domestic currency.”