A Saigontourist Group hotel offers free accommodation for frontline doctors and medical staff.  Photo courtesy of nld.com.vn

HCM CITY — More than 20 hotels in HCM City are offering free accommodations and meals for frontline doctors and other medical staff fighting the pandemic.

According to the HCM City Department of Tourism, about 50,000 free nights are reserved, indicating the sector’s effort to join hands with authorities in COVID-19 prevention and control.

Specifically, the Saigontourist Group has provided 6,150 free nights and three meals per day for doctors at Phạm Ngọc Thạch Hospital, Cần Giờ COVID-19 Treatment Hospital and HCM City University Medical Centre while also planning to help 3,000 doctors, nurses and medical staff who will participate in disease prevention and control in HCM City in the near future.

Six hotels are now providing free accommodation and meals for about 650 doctors in hospitals with COVID-19 treatment for at least one month.

Another 11 hotels have agreed to serve as isolation points with thousands of free nights in 14- or 21-day isolation rooms for doctors and nurses involved in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

“About 100 hotels have offered free support and discounts of 30 to 70 per cent for some people who are entering the country, F1 cases that cannot afford the quarantine fee, and locals with extremely poor backgrounds. Many others have become 'community hotels' for people with poor backgrounds who cannot return home,” a representative of the HCM City Department of Tourism said.

Meanwhile, travel firms such as Vietravel Tourism Company, Saco Transport and Tourism Company, Fiditour Travel Company and others have provided hundreds of vehicles to hospitals offering COVID-19 treatment and the HCM City Centre for Disease Control. 

These vehicles specialise in transporting doctors and medical staff to vaccination points and carrying F0 (infected patients) and F1 (close contacts of patients) cases to isolation areas.

Some hotels and the Chefs Association under the HCM City Tourism Association have prepared thousands of meals and desserts for the poor in quarantined areas and anti-epidemic forces.

Director of the HCM City Department of Tourism Nguyễn Thị Ánh Hoa said these small actions were full of love and gratitude from the tourism industry to medical teams on the frontline. 

Businesses book hotel rooms for employees 

Businesses have rushed to find places for their employees to stay, following the “One road, two locations” programme from authorities.

A representative of a four-star hotel in District 1 said that 60 out of 65 rooms at the hotel are currently occupied for at least the next two weeks by employees of a manufacturing enterprise who must stay together to ensure the requirement of “isolation and production”.

In addition to three and four-star hotels, many five-star hotels have been rented by firms for hundreds of employees to stay for at least the next two weeks.

A night at a three to four-star hotel costs from VNĐ800,000 to VND1.2 million and a five-star hotel from VNĐ1.8 to over VNĐ 2 million per night.  The price range is negotiable, depending on hotel policies and businesses' budgets.

At Đông Nam Industrial Park in Củ Chi District, manufacturing enterprises have rented hotels with a large number of rooms for workers to maintain production.

All single and double rooms in the Mộng Thuý hotel system were booked by Sheico Việt Nam Company for their workers to stay from July 14.

Workers are transported back and forth between the hotel and factory by the company’s shuttle bus every day.

In Tân Thuận Processing Zone in District 7, many companies have also sent their workers to nearby hotels to stay.

The HCM City Department of Tourism requires the hotels to submit information about all guests for easy tracking. — VNS

Watch our video on the construction of field hospitals in HCM City