Hotels under fire by students over exam period price hikes

Some hotels near test centers for the ongoing national entrance examination for postgraduate studies came under fire for charging extortionate room rates during the exam period.

Some students in provinces including Shandong, Liaoning and Sichuan complained on social media that they had to pay up to 10 times the usual price for hotel rooms during the exam period from Saturday to Monday. Some hotels even asked those that had booked rooms in advance at a lower price to pay the difference or cancel their reservations.

Hotels in Changqing district of Jinan, Shandong province, were among those that attracted the most complaints.

On Dec 15, the district's market supervision authority met with the operators of 65 hotels in the district to remind them to keep prices within a reasonable range as permitted by laws, regulations and policies, and to strengthen self-discipline.

The Shandong Development and Reform Commission issued a document on the same day, stipulating that hotels in Changqing district that more than double their normal average room rates during the exam period will be looked into as a case of price gouging.

Every year, many test takers who live far away from their exam venues choose to book nearby hotel rooms in order to have a good rest between tests and avoid getting held up in traffic.

A Liaoning University student surnamed Jia is one of the test takers this year. He told The Beijing News that it takes him an hour to get to the test center by subway, so he booked a hotel room nearby for Friday and Saturday on Oct 20, at a total cost of 266 yuan ($42).

His reservation was confirmed on the day he made the booking but the hotel asked him to cancel on Dec 11 because an escaped prisoner was caught in the hotel and the police had asked for a temporary closure, Jia told the newspaper.

However, after the cancellation, Jia said that on an e-commerce platform he found that the hotel was open on Friday and Saturday and that the two-day rental for the room type he booked in October had risen to 926 yuan.

In a telephone interview, a staff member of the hotel told The Beijing News they raised the rates because the exam days happen to fall on Christmas this year and they didn't have enough rooms to meet the combined demand.

Regarding the temporary closure, the staff member explained that the hotel had indeed closed due to a case involving the police and was later told it could reopen.

However, such behavior is price gouging and profiteering, claimed Han Jianlong, a lawyer of Qilu Law Firm, in an interview with Legal Daily. "It hurts the interests of consumers and may also cause market disorder."

That hotels jack up room rates by huge amounts during major exams shows there is indeed a surge in demand and that some hotel operators lack good faith, Fu Jian, a lawyer with Henan Yulong Law Firm, told The Beijing News, adding that forced cancellation or rebooking is a breach of contract and refusal of transaction.

Wang Yisong, an associate professor of law at Shandong University of Political Science and Law, told Legal Daily that as per the Price Law, market-regulated pricing does not mean that pricing is entirely left to the discretion of businesses.

They must abide by the Price Law and accept regulatory supervision in setting their prices, Wang said.

huyuyan@chinadaily.com.cn