Affirming the brand, building trust with tourists

(Baothanhhoa.vn) - In the first 6 months of 2025, the whole province welcomed nearly 10.5 million visitors, becoming one of the top tourist attractions in the country. However, the "explosion" in the number of visitors also poses a problem for localities and destinations in controlling the market and service quality.

Sam Son Beach - Summer destination for tourists.

As a key tourist destination of the province, Sam Son coastal urban area welcomes millions of visitors each year, concentrated in the peak summer tourist months. In order to ensure the conditions for welcoming and serving guests, Sam Son City has developed and implemented synchronous management plans and strategies in the field of tourism service business. At the same time, the interdisciplinary inspection team has been directed to proactively inspect all areas of accommodation, food safety and hygiene, price management for conditional business services... For accommodation service establishments, the city requires establishments to publicly post service prices and regulations of the tourist accommodation establishment. Establishments must have a contract or agreement to rent rooms at the accommodation establishment. In case of a dispute, if there is no contract or agreement, the tourist accommodation establishment is the violating party and must take full responsibility and be handled according to regulations... In addition, the city also strictly prohibits acts of forcing guests to eat and stay; Taking back the room before the agreed time; cutting off water and air conditioning for guests; selling goods at higher prices than listed; having uncivilized behavior and speech towards tourists...

Manager of Bien Nho Premium Resort & Spa (Ho Xuan Huong Street, Truong Son Ward) Tran Thi Nhung said: “Through propaganda work and professional training courses organized by the city, the management team and staff in all departments always strictly implement the provisions of the law and the Code of Conduct for Civilized Tourism. In addition, we have proactively invited experts in the restaurant and hotel industry to provide direct training. By closely following the actual situation, the experts have given us more skills to handle situations, update new tourism development trends, contributing to improving the quality of service to tourists, even during peak times”.

To improve the quality and capacity to welcome tourists during the peak season, tourism service businesses in coastal tourist areas in particular and destinations in the province in general have focused on improving the experience of tourists. In particular, promoting product diversification is the clearest evidence. Tourists coming to coastal tourist areas can choose to stay in Thanh Hoa City or connect to tours to Lam Kinh (Tho Xuan), Pu Luong (Ba Thuoc)... Thereby, both avoiding overloading of coastal tourist areas and tourists can have more interesting experiences when coming to Thanh in the summer. However, market orientation and customer flow have not been effectively implemented by businesses.

Chairman of the Provincial Tourism Association Le Xuan Thao said: “During the peak tourist season, along with sea tourism products, visitors to Thanh Hoa also have many other attractive options such as farm tourism, community ecology, culture - history... However, on hot days or holidays, weekends will inevitably be overloaded, the quality of service at some facilities is not really guaranteed. Therefore, along with accommodation and food service providers, it is necessary to have the participation of travel businesses in orienting tours, routes and customer flows. On the other hand, it is necessary to closely link with businesses in the regional linkage chain to build tours suitable to the needs of each market”.

According to tourists' feedback, recently, some tourism service businesses in the province have not posted prices and provided unclear information about prices. In particular, some accommodation establishments have set "conditions" and travel combos, forcing guests to buy one or more additional services to book a room during the peak tourist season. This situation affects the image and tourism culture of Thanh Hoa. Faced with this situation, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism (VH,TT&DL) has coordinated with functional forces to inspect and verify, and at the same time issued Document No. 2948/SVHTTDL-QLDL dated June 17, 2025 on the implementation of legal regulations on prices in tourism service business activities in the province. In particular, it is requested that localities and management boards of tourist areas and spots urgently review and compile statistics on accommodation establishments, rest stops, and tourism service businesses in the management area. Strengthen inspection, control, and guidance for establishments to comply with legal regulations on prices, comply with regulations on registration, public posting of service and goods prices, and sell at the correct listed prices...

Lam Kinh National Special Historical Relic Site (Tho Xuan) strives to ensure conditions for welcoming visitors during peak season.

For tourism service businesses and tourism service agents, the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism recommends that they strictly list prices and sell at the listed price; do not list prices in foreign currencies; avoid ambiguous information about prices and lack of transparency in transactions of buying and selling tourism products and services. In addition, do not take advantage of the high demand for tourism during peak season to create a virtual shortage of accommodation; do not have unfavorable terms for consumers such as limiting the right to complain, sue... On the tourist side, it is necessary to be vigilant against acts of taking advantage of artificial intelligence (AI) technology, impersonating social network accounts to profit, appropriating customers' assets and service deposits.

On the journey to build and spread the message of "Four Seasons of Fragrance", Thanh Hoa tourism always strives to build a "Safe, civilized, friendly" destination. Violations in service business activities, especially errors such as not posting prices, forcing prices, forcing customers to order food at tourist accommodation establishments will be strictly handled. Tightening management and improving service quality are considered the "key" so that each summer is not only the peak tourist season, but also the season for Thanh Hoa to affirm its brand and build trust with tourists.

Article and photos: Hoai Anh

Source: https://baothanhhoa.vn/khang-dinh-thuong-hieu-xay-dung-niem-tin-voi-du-khach-253116.htm