A hotel in Ha Long City, the capital of Quang Ninh Province in northern Vietnam, has denied claims that it charged customers a backup power supply fee of VND300,000 (US$12.7) per night.

On Wednesday, several news outlets reported that Ha Long’s Tung Luxury Hotel asked a tourist from north-central Thanh Hoa Province to pay VND300,000 per night for backup power when he was checking in to the facility on June 5. 

The tourist, named N.N.H., claimed the receptionist told him the fee was to cover the cost of running a generator as Ha Long had lost electricity.

H. said he wound up leaving the facility and searching for a different hotel.

The manager of Tung Hotel claimed they had never met the tourist but did admit to charging customers additional fees of VND150,000 ($6.3) per night in order to make up for hits the hotel has taken from blackouts that have affected the region for a while given a lack of electricity.

Bich Tran, a resident of Hanoi, experienced Ha Long’s blackouts for herself during a recent vacation.

She and her family booked a villa in Ha Long for three days and two nights from June 2 to 4 but they faced power cuts between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm on these days.

“Due to the outages, my family and I had almost no time to relax. Instead, we sought ways to escape the hot weather. We tried to visit the Quang Ninh Museum, but it had its power cut as well," Bich Tran recounted.

“The power was also cut on the morning of June 4, so we decided to return to Hanoi earlier than planned.

“If our hotel had collected a backup power fee, our family would have been willing to pay. Wandering outside all day made us tired and the expenses were much higher."

She advised tourists visiting the northern region during the summer holiday to research whether their destinations are subject to a power cut plan and what their hotels’ solutions are for the situation.

Rotational and repeated power cuts have discouraged travelers from spending long stays in Ha Long, said Nguyen Thi Nga, head of human resources at Long Dai Thien Co. Ltd., which operates the Dragon Legend Hotel in Bai Chay Ward, Ha Long City.

Some travel firms have canceled tours to the city and shifted to other localities, Nga added.

Her hotel has had to continuously run power generators at three times the cost of regular electricity.

Quang Ninh Power Company has publicized power cut plans in the province to minimize the impact on production and business activities.

Key tourist sites in Ha Long City have been prioritized in order to aid the tourism industry, according to the company.

The firm has plans to increase the specificity of the power cut schedule and shorten outage duration. 

In particular, it will suspend the power supply for five hours per day on average on each transmission line and will not cut the power in Bai Chay, Hung Thang, and Tuan Chau Wards as well as the area from Tran Quoc Nghien coastal road to the Quang Ninh Museum on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday afternoons.

Quang Ninh Power Company has reported to the municipal People’s Committee, the Department of Industry and Trade, and the Quang Ninh Economic Zone Authority a power saving plan to ensure socio-economic stability and minimize losses triggered by power cuts, said Pham Dinh Chan, deputy director of the company.

The company calculated that if its large customers, including enterprises in industrial parks and coal companies, reduce their power consumption volumes by adjusting their production and business plans and suspending production lines in trial operation, they can save 100-150 megawatts of electricity per day.

This will help reduce enterprises’ costs and ease pressure on the power supply.

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