In TravelMole Asia last week, Exotissimo Travel accused hoteliers in Vietnam of a "grab for cash".
An Exotissimo spokesman said, "With the recent room shortage, almost every premium hotel (from 3-5 stars) is operating at close to full capacity throughout the year, and the low-season has all but disappeared.
"Many of the hotels are now taking advantage of this current situation, and are not honouring their prior commitments, including previously negotiated and contracted room rates."
Jon Hewson, General Factotum, of the online site VirtuallyThere.ca, and a frequent contributor to TravelMole discussions, puts the other side of the story.
He writes:
"The hotel scene in Vietnam is chaotic. Many of the large hotels are joint ventures, 49% foreign owned and 51% government / agency owned and a good number are operated by Western companies.
"The market is still developing and exhibits growing pains with unfettered greed taking advantage of the situation. Capping off this volatile mess is the ability of VNAT, through the government dictat, to artificially control (distort) the market.
"If contracts are not honoured it wouldn't take many telephone calls to round up the players, many of whom would be provincial government agencies.
"Destination management companies also play a part in this as they, too, have sought to exploit weaknesses in the Vietnam market and have signed contracts that are distinctly lop-sided. Furthermore they frequently contravene Vietnamese tourism legislation.
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