Come & Go Vietnam Blog

Steve Jackson, the man behind the excellent Our Man in Hanoi blog, left a very thought-provoking comment on my piece about Vietnam’s sexy new tourism ambassador. Steve says:  “Elsewhere tourism bosses were talking about utilising Facebook to promote tourism while FB remains blocked. How about not blocking Facebook – there would be a way of allowing people to post pics of their travels to friends while in Vietnam. More WIFI here than anywhere I’ve ever been so why not make something out of that and let people share those great images.”

It’s a really good point. As the world’s biggest social network, Facebook has become pretty much the default channel for travellers wishing to share updates, anecdotes, photos & videos with their friends & family while they travel. It’s quicker, easier & less intrusive than email, more versatile than Twitter, and a lot less hassle (and less likely to be abandoned after a few days) than a travel blog. And Vietnam has free WiFi everywhere – in the cities, and increasingly in the countryside, virtually every bar, cafe and restaurant is offering free WiFi.

BUT, Vietnam still insists on blocking Facebook (not, as many think, for political reasons, but economic ones – to save bandwidth for, and encourage take up of, domestic social networks), and in doing so, it is blocking a potentially highly effective, and free, channel for word-of-mouth advertising. Instead of logging into Facebook and telling their friends how great Vietnam is, and showing off their photos, tourists are complaining that they can’t access Facebook. This is not a good thing.

By far the most popular blog posting I’ve made all year was my September piece about hotel wifi charges, about how 5* hotels have the nerve to charge for internet access on top of their already high room rates, while 3* hotels usually provide it for free. A good example is the Ibis on Bencoolen St in Singapore, where I stayed during this year’s ITB Asia – it offered the cheapest rates of any central 3*-standard hotel during the event, but wifi was free throughout the property (as was ironing – they have a special ironing room which guests can use free of charge, a great idea).

But elsewhere, the madness continues. Yesterday evening a friend told me of his experiences at one 5* property in Saigon, which, as it’s right opposite his company’s new HQ, they chose for a full-day training session. Now bear in mind that my friend’s company employs 350 people in Saigon and spends over $40,000 a year on meetings & other functions in hotels.

Yesterday they held a training day for 20 staff, which, with lunch thrown in, cost them around $25 per person. They arrived at the hotel to find there was no wifi in the meeting room, and requested the login & password for this. The hotel said they could do this at the usual rate of $15 per person per day! Assuming they were joking, they asked again, and were given a “special offer” of $7.50 per person! The hotel wouldn’t budge any further from this rate.

Are these people absolutely insane? Jeopardising $40,000 worth of business to charge $150 for a service that costs the hotel nothing to begin with? Because obviously the company in question is now going to take their business elsewhere, and rightly so.

Such cases are not rare in Vietnam, where a short-term mentality prevails, long-term relationships have no value and people would rather have $150 in their hand today than $40,000 tomorrow. But if I was the GM of this hotel and I found out about this lunacy, heads would be rolling…

As a regular business/leisure traveller and web addict, wifi access is very important to me. And this is one of the great things about living in Vietnam – virtually every café, bar and restaurant has free wifi, meaning I’m never far away from a connection. Sadly, the same cannot be said of hotels, at least not all of them.

I spent a couple of days last month escorting our new German sales rep on hotel visits, and one of the questions we asked in each hotel was “Do you have free internet?” In budget hotels (3* and below) the answer was always “yes”. In luxury hotels (4*/5*) the answer was invariably “no”, with one notable exception (Caravelle, take a bow!).

What this basically means is the more I pay for a hotel room, the less likely I am to have free internet, and if I stay at a 5* hotel I’m expected to fork out $25 per day for wifi on top of the $100+ I’m paying for my room. Does that make sense to you? Because it doesn’t make any sense to me. 5* hotels cater mainly for business travellers for whom internet and email are essential business tools, whereas budget hotels cater more for tourists who, whilst they will almost certainly use internet at some point during their stay, are equally happy to head out of the hotel and use an internet café.

The stupidity of the situation was highlighted when in one luxury hotel, which even charges for internet use in its lobby, I was able to connect to half a dozen free wifi connections provided by neighbouring cafes where, for the price of a drink, I can sit and use free wifi for as long as I want.

The irony is that 5* hotels throw all kinds of free stuff at their guests, much of it stuff that I virtually never use – bathrobe, TV, kettle, complimentary comb, body lotion etc. Obviously these are all tangible items that create a sense of luxury, whereas wifi is invisible, but I would willingly give up my bathrobe, free comb and even my TV for a free internet connection.

So come on hoteliers, it’s 2010, and to many travellers, an internet connection is as essential as hot water, pillows and a decent breakfast – stop charging us for something we can get for free everywhere else!

As a regular business traveller, I am often amazed at the simple things that hotels – even luxury ones – get totally wrong. I’m not a particularly demanding guest – I don’t want a private butler, free champagne or pillows stuffed with down plucked by hand from the backs of rare species of swan. But there are some basic things that hotels consistently get wrong, things that would cost little or nothing to put right. Here are my top 6:

Smiles

This is the easiest one to fix, and the most common one that hotels get wrong. Is a smile on checking in really too much to ask? A smiling doorman and receptionist gets the guest’s stay off to a great start, and it’s even better when staff learn the guest’s name and use it. I once stayed at a small hotel in Phu Quoc where all the staff learned my name on arrival and used it every time they saw me during the 4 days I was there. It made me feel like a VIP and I have recommended the place to countless people since.

Free Internet

Nothing earns a hotel a place on my sh*tlist quicker than charging me to use the internet in my room or in the lobby. I don’t care about the restrictive contract you signed with your ISP 5 years ago, it’s 2010 – I can get free wifi in the café next door or the pub round the corner. I’m paying you $100+ for a room and travelling on business – why should I pack up my laptop and go outside just to check my emails?

A Dry Bathroom Floor

We’ve put a man on the moon. We’ve sent robots to Mars. We’ve got matchbox-

sized devices that can hold our entire record collections. Why can’t we get shower curtains that actually fit properly?

A Half-Decent Breakfast

Not usually an issue in Europe, but a BIG problem in Asia, where even 5* hotels struggle to serve up a passable brekkie. If you can’t get decent bacon or sausage, don’t bother serving half-arsed local versions (and for god’s sake, ditch the chicken sausage! It is an abomination, a crime against gastronomy). If you want to know what decent sausage & bacon look like, go to any guesthouse in Ireland or Scotland and they’ll show you. And try getting some toasters that don’t take 10 minutes to give bread a mild tan.

Affordable Mini-bars

American comedian Rich Hall once opined “A hotel mini-bar allows you to see into the future and what a can of Pepsi will cost in 2020″. Mini-bar prices generally range from merely exorbitant to downright offensive, and the fact that hotels have now started slapping non-removable stickers on the contents to stop you swilling them and then replacing them from the 7-11 next door just adds insult to injury. Cut mini-bar prices and you may just sell a few more cans of beer. And after I’ve just handed over $500 for my stay, do you really need to keep me hanging around a further 10 minutes just in case I end up leaving without paying for the one can of Coke I drank?

Proper Coathangers

Ah, the 2-piece wooden coathanger. You trust me enough to take my $100+ per night and let me stay in one of your rooms, but not enough to trust me not to run off with your coathangers. Yes, the bottom half of a 2-piece coathanger is useless to me on its own, but one day I might just decide that the top half is similarly useless to you and steal it anyway, just for a laugh. Plastic or metal coathangers cost next to nothing these days, so use them – my case is full already, I’m not going to steal them. Promise.