An employee at a Danang-based hotel helps a guest to carry luggage. A number of hotels in Danang City and Quang Nam Province in central Vietnam have let their employees take unpaid leave for several days each month

Hoi An Central Boutique Hotel, located in Hoi An City, Quang Nam Province, has 115 workers, including executives and employees. To address the steep fall in revenues and guests triggered by the virus, named SARS-CoV-2, the hotel has let its employees take annual and transfer leaves and has suspended its recruitment plan.

“We are training many current employees to support various departments at the hotel that are short of workers,” Phan Van Thuc, general director of the hotel, noted, adding that from March, each worker will take an unpaid five-day vacation per month.

“The hotel will consider increasing or lowering the unpaid days off in late March, based on its business performance,” Thuc told the Saigon Times on March 2.

Hotel Royal Hoi An-MGallery is also keeping a close watch on its business situation to adopt a suitable solution for human resources.

In the initial phase, the hotel will let its employees take any days off left over from last year, remarked Nguyen Truong Gia Bao, head of marketing and communications at the hotel.

“We are doing everything possible, from changing the opening time and restructuring work hours to cutting operating costs,” Bao stressed, adding that the hotel’s staff will take time off on rotation without pay.

Facing the same fate, many hotels in Danang City are weighing plans to let their staff take unpaid days off during this period of hardship.

Nguyen Duc Quynh, deputy general director of Furama Resort Danang, pointed out that the hotel is encouraging its employees to take time off and training its 800 current workers in various skills.

As the hotel does not heavily depend on Chinese and South Korean tourists, it has not been seriously affected by the fallout from the virus.

Room occupancy rates at many hotels and resorts in the city have accounted for a mere 15%-40% as tourists from China and South Korea, Vietnam’s two largest source markets, are subject to travel restrictions. This low occupancy is expected to continue in the coming months, Quynh said.

“Multiple lodging facilities are contending with the hardship caused by headlines on the coronavirus outbreak, while some others are planning to shut down,” Quynh said, adding that employees at a number of travel firms, transport businesses, restaurants and spa centers are on unpaid leave. This situation is unprecedented, he added. SGT

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