A survey by the Consumer Foundation showed that 75 percent of hostels ask customers to pay too much for a deposit when they make room reservations, it was revealed yesterday.
The foundation’s chairman Hsieh Tien-jen (謝天仁) said that it had randomly checked 12 hostels around the nation and discovered that nine had asked guests to pay 50 percent of the total fee for their stay as a deposit.
Some hostel operators went so far as to confiscate the deposit when customers had canceled their reservations seven days in advance, it said.
According to the draft standardized contract between customers and hostel operators — which has yet to be approved by the Tourism Bureau — the deposit must not exceed 30 percent of the room costs for the first night, Hsieh said.
“Hostel operators must refund customers 50 percent of the deposit if the customer cancels the reservation a week in advance,” he added.
The survey also found that two hostels said they would keep the deposit if customers canceled their reservations because of uncontrollable factors such as typhoons or natural disasters.
Some hostels said that they would refund the customers after deducting a NT$100 processing fee.
Three of the hostels also failed to display their official registration numbers on the Tourism Bureau’s Web site.
The foundation asked the Tourism Bureau to give updated information on the accessibility of tourist attractions on its Web site.
Meanwhile, the Tourism Bureau should also find out if any hostels or hotels had ceased operations or were destroyed by Typhoon Morakot and post the results on its Web site, it said.
Huang Yu-chen (黃玉珍), director of the hotel inspection and supervision center at the Tourism Bureau, said that according to the division of labor, local governments are in charge of regulating the operations and management of the approximately 3,000 registered hostels in the nation.
The Tourism Bureau, on the other hand, is in charge of stipulating the policies and laws on the establishment of hostels.
Huang also said that the bureau has issued official notices to hostel operators nationwide asking them to provide a full, unconditional refund to customers if they cancel a reservation because of a typhoon or for other circumstances beyond their control.
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