Hoi An ancient city in the central province of Quang Nam has seen few tourists due to the COVID-19 pandemic. (Photo: tienphong.vn) Accordingto the firms, they are on the verge of closing their businesses because thereare no customers due to the pandemic. With no revenue, they are afraid oflosing their restaurants and hotels because they have taken out loans frombanks and are now struggling to pay the debts.
MauroGasparotti, Director of Savills Hotels Asia Pacific, told Tien phong (Vanguard) newspaper thatthe accommodation service industry continued to be severely affected by thepandemic. Hotels and resorts all had received many requests to cancel or changethe date of stay.
Inaddition, Mauro said, MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions)and event business segments of hotels in HCM City and Hanoi have been alsoaffected as conferences were forced to be postponed or cancelled by the localauthority due to the pandemic.
Thisis really a blow to hotels as from April onwards, the market will be in thepeak season for events and conferences. Most hotels have high expectations forthis business segment to partially compensate for losses from room revenue,according to Mauro.
Savills'survey also noted that the business activities of resorts had suffered the samedifficulties as more than 50 percent of the number of bookings cancelled,mainly from groups of tourists and corporate customers.
Ahotel firm in the central coastal city of Nha Trang has recently petitioned tothe Prime Minister because the firm has to burden loans and is now no longerable to pay the debts so the firm’s owner fears foreclosure.
Thecompany director said in 2017 they borrowed 250 billion VND from a bank tobuild a hotel. The hotel was completed and put into operation from January 31,2019. In January 2020, COVID-19 caused the tourism industry to fall intocrisis. Currently, the pandemic is still complicated and the hotel business hasremained pessimistic as foreign guests have not been allowed to be entered whiledomestic guests are very modest.
InApril 2021, the firm had to pay both principal and interest of 5.5 billion VND tobanks and it now has no capital left. In early May, the firm was fined due tooverdue debts. Now they have petitioned the Prime Minister to ask for supportfrom the bank to extend the debt and restructure the repayment period of theloan principal and interest, the firm’s owner said.
Accordingto accommodation firms, in 2020, banks restructured loans for some of them, butthe extension of the debts was only between three and six months. Now thedeadline is approaching and they still have no capital to repay the debts.
HoangVan Vinh, Chairman of the Khanh Hoa Tourism Association, said throughout thisyear, the tourism industry was heavily affected by the pandemic. Theassociation forecast the difficulties will last at least until the end ofthis year.
Accordingto the Vietnam Tourism Association, urgent solutions are needed to helpcompanies maintain operations and recover soon.
TheGeneral Statistics Office reported that due to the impact of COVID-19, tourismrevenue in the first quarter of this year was estimated at 3.1 trillion VND,down 60.1 percent over the same period last year, while the industry’s revenuein Q1 2020 also declined 24.8 per cent against Q1 2019./.
VNA
