Types of accommodation in Vietnam
Before you start searching, it helps to know what you are actually looking at. Vietnam has several accommodation categories, and the labels are not always used consistently. A “homestay” is not always someone’s home. A “boutique hotel” can mean almost anything. Understanding the differences saves surprises on arrival.
Guesthouses and mini hotels
The most common budget and mid-range option across Vietnam is the mini hotel — a small, family-owned property, usually four to eight floors, squeezed into a narrow shophouse plot. These are sometimes listed as guesthouses, nhà khách, or simply “hotel.” Quality varies enormously. At their best, they are clean, practical, and run by owners who actually care. At their worst, they are dark, noisy, and in poor condition.
Most mini hotels are not part of any chain and are not formally rated. The only reliable way to judge them is through recent guest reviews. A property that was excellent two years ago may have changed ownership or maintenance standards since.
Nha nghi
The nha nghi is a Vietnamese-style budget motel, designed primarily for domestic travelers stopping overnight. They are common on roadsides, near bus stations, and on the edges of towns. Rooms are basic — a bed, air conditioning, a private bathroom, and not much else. They are rarely listed on English-language booking platforms, which means foreign travelers rarely encounter them unless they are traveling off the beaten path.
They are not inherently bad, but they are not built with foreign travelers in mind. Expect minimal English, no breakfast, and rooms that prioritize function over comfort.
Boutique hotels
“Boutique hotel” is used loosely in Vietnam. In the better cases, it means a small, independently owned property with genuine design character — often a restored shophouse, a heritage building, or something with a distinct local aesthetic. In other cases, it is a marketing label applied to any small hotel that wants to charge more.
The distinction matters when booking. Look past the label and at the actual photos, the room sizes, and recent reviews. A real boutique hotel in Vietnam can be one of the best-value stays in the country. A fake one is just a mini hotel with higher prices.
Homestays
Homestay is both a genuine accommodation type and an overused marketing term in Vietnam, and it is important to understand the difference.
A real homestay means staying in or directly alongside someone’s home. This is most common in ethnic minority areas — the mountains of Ha Giang, the villages around Sapa, and parts of the Mekong Delta. Rooms are simple, meals are shared with the family, and the experience is genuinely local. Comfort is basic: a mattress, a mosquito net, and a shared bathroom are typical. This is not a weakness of the format — it is the point.
The marketing version of homestay is something else entirely. Many small hotels in Vietnam — properties where the owner does not live on site, where there is a reception desk, and where the experience is no different from a guesthouse — call themselves homestays because the word appeals to travelers looking for authenticity. This is not necessarily a bad place to stay. It can be comfortable, personal, and well-run. It is just not a real homestay.
Before booking anything labeled a homestay, read the reviews carefully. If guests mention meeting the family, sharing meals, or being shown around the village, it is likely genuine. If reviews read like any standard hotel stay, it is the marketing version.
Read more about: homestays in Vietnam.
Resorts
Resort is another term used broadly. In Vietnam, it can refer to a genuine large-scale property with pools, restaurants, and beach access — or it can be applied to a mid-range hotel that has a small garden. The word alone tells you nothing about quality or scale.
Genuine resorts are concentrated along the coast — Da Nang, Phu Quoc, Mui Ne, Nha Trang — and in a few inland nature destinations like Ninh Binh and Phong Nha. If you are looking for a resort stay, filter by actual facilities rather than the label.
Serviced apartments
For stays longer than a week, serviced apartments are worth considering. They are common in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, and Hoi An. You get more space, a kitchen or kitchenette, and lower nightly rates than a comparable hotel room. Most are listed on Booking.com and Agoda alongside hotels, though Airbnb has a stronger inventory of this type in Vietnam.
The tradeoff is less flexibility. Serviced apartments often have minimum stay requirements and less responsive support if something goes wrong.
Understanding hotel star ratings in Vietnam
Star ratings are one of the first things travelers look at when comparing hotels. In Vietnam, they are also one of the least reliable signals you can use. Understanding why saves you from both overpaying and from ending up somewhere that does not match your expectations.
How the star rating system works in Vietnam
Vietnam uses a one-to-five star classification system managed by the General Department of Tourism. The criteria cover room size, furnishings, facilities, and service standards. On paper, it is a structured system. In practice, it has a significant flaw: participation is entirely voluntary.
A hotel in Vietnam is not required to apply for a star rating. Many good properties never bother. Many mediocre ones do, because a star rating helps with marketing. The result is a system where the absence of stars tells you nothing, and the presence of stars tells you less than you might think.
Star ratings are self-initiated, not independently inspected
In most countries, hotel star ratings involve periodic third-party inspections. In Vietnam, the process works differently. A hotel applies for a rating, submits documentation, and is assessed — but only when the hotel chooses to go through that process. There is no system that re-evaluates properties over time.
This means a hotel can earn a four-star rating based on its facilities at opening, then decline in maintenance and service for years without losing that rating. It also means that two hotels with the same star rating in different parts of the country were assessed by different regional authorities, using the same criteria but not necessarily the same standards.
What star ratings actually mean in practice
As a rough guide, star ratings in Vietnam do reflect something — but the margin within each category is wide.
One and two-star hotels are basic. Rooms are small, often windowless in budget properties, and amenities are minimal. These are functional places to sleep, nothing more. Two-star properties are generally acceptable for travelers comfortable with no-frills accommodation, but they are not for everyone.
Three-star hotels are the most useful category for most travelers. At this level you can generally expect a clean room with air conditioning, a private bathroom, a TV, Wi-Fi, and usually breakfast. Room size is still often small by Western standards, but the experience is reliable. A well-reviewed three-star hotel in Vietnam frequently delivers better value than a poorly reviewed four-star.
Four-star hotels offer noticeably more comfort — larger rooms, better furnishings, a lift, a proper reception, and more attentive service. Quality at this level is more consistent, though still variable between cities and regions. In Ho Chi Minh City or Da Nang, a four-star hotel meets international standards. In a smaller town, the same rating may reflect a property that simply has more facilities than its neighbors.
Five-star hotels in Vietnam’s main cities and resort destinations are genuinely world-class and often significantly cheaper than equivalent properties in Europe or the United States. Outside the major destinations, five-star is a rare and sometimes misleading label.
Why the same star rating means different things in different places
A three-star hotel in Hoi An and a three-star hotel in a small town in the central highlands are not the same thing. Star ratings are assessed relative to local standards, local costs, and local competition. Vietnam’s tourism infrastructure is concentrated in a handful of destinations, and the gap between those destinations and everywhere else is significant.
In practical terms: trust star ratings more in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, Da Nang, Hoi An, and Phu Quoc. Trust them less everywhere else, and rely more heavily on recent guest reviews.
What to use instead of star ratings
Recent reviews on Google Maps and Booking.com are more useful than star ratings for judging a hotel in Vietnam. Look specifically at reviews from the last six to twelve months — properties change, and older reviews may reflect a different owner, a renovation, or a decline in standards.
Pay attention to what reviewers mention repeatedly. Noise, room size, and the gap between photos and reality are the most common genuine complaints. A hotel with a 8.5 score on Booking.com and consistent recent reviews will tell you far more than its star rating.
How to find a good hotel in Vietnam
Knowing where to look and how to read what you find matters more than most travelers realize. Vietnam has thousands of hotels listed across multiple platforms, and the gap between the best and worst options at any price point is significant. A methodical approach saves both money and disappointment.
Which booking platform to use
For most travelers booking hotels in Vietnam, Booking.com and Agoda are the two main options. Both have broad coverage across the country, including smaller destinations that other platforms barely list.
Agoda has historically had stronger inventory and better prices for Southeast Asia, particularly for budget and mid-range properties. Booking.com tends to have more flexible cancellation options and a review system that many travelers find easier to navigate. In practice, it is worth checking both for any specific property, since prices and availability sometimes differ.
Traveloka and VnTrip are local platforms worth knowing about. They sometimes list properties — particularly smaller guesthouses and locally owned hotels — that do not appear on international platforms. Prices on these sites can be lower for domestically oriented hotels, since the commission structure is different. The tradeoff is that the review systems on these platforms are less reliable than Booking.com or Google Maps for foreign travelers.
For longer stays or apartments, Airbnb has solid coverage in Vietnam’s main cities and tourist destinations.
Is it cheaper to book direct?
Sometimes, but not always. Hotels pay Booking.com and Agoda a commission of roughly 15 to 25 percent. Some properties recover that cost by listing higher rates on the platforms and offering a lower price if you contact them directly. Others match the platform price because the visibility is worth the commission to them.
If you find a hotel you want to stay at, it is worth sending a quick message directly — via email or WhatsApp, both of which are widely used by Vietnamese hotels — to ask if they can offer a better rate. Smaller, independent properties are more likely to negotiate than hotels that rely heavily on platform bookings. Do not expect this to work at larger or popular hotels during peak season, when rooms fill regardless.
One practical middle ground: find the hotel on a platform, then check if it has its own website or Facebook page with a contact option. Many Vietnamese hotels maintain active Facebook pages and respond quickly to messages there.
How to read reviews
Reviews are the most useful tool for evaluating hotels in Vietnam, but they require some judgment to interpret correctly.
On Booking.com, only guests who have completed a stay can leave a review, which makes the review pool more reliable than open platforms. Google Maps reviews are broader and include non-guests, but the volume of reviews on Google often gives a more accurate overall picture than any single platform.
Focus on recent reviews — from the last six to twelve months. A hotel with a strong reputation from three years ago may have changed ownership, gone through a renovation that disrupted quality, or simply declined. Vietnam’s hotel market moves quickly.
Look for patterns rather than individual opinions. A single complaint about noise means little. Ten reviews mentioning the same noisy street or thin walls is a real signal. The same applies to positive patterns: consistent mentions of a helpful owner, a good breakfast, or a well-maintained room carry weight.
Be cautious of properties with a large number of overwhelmingly positive reviews and very few critical ones. Fake or incentivized reviews exist across all platforms. A natural review profile includes a range of scores and mentions both strengths and minor weaknesses.
Why hotel photos are often misleading
Professional hotel photography in Vietnam is almost universally flattering, and often misleading. Wide-angle lenses make small rooms look spacious. Carefully chosen angles hide the fact that the window faces a wall. Rooftop pool photos omit the construction site next door.
A few habits help. Search for the hotel name on Google Images and look for traveler photos alongside the official ones — these are taken on phones and show the reality. On Google Maps, the photo section often includes guest uploads that are far more accurate than the hotel’s own images. On Booking.com, filter the photo gallery by “guest photos” if the option is available.
Pay particular attention to room size. Vietnam has some genuinely small hotel rooms, particularly in cities where land is expensive and buildings are narrow. If room size matters to you, look for reviews that mention it specifically, or contact the hotel and ask for the actual room dimensions before booking.
How to check the actual location
Hotel addresses in Vietnam require some scrutiny, particularly in Hanoi’s Old Quarter and Hoi An’s historic center. Properties sometimes describe their location in ways that suggest they are closer to key attractions than they actually are. A hotel described as “in the Old Quarter” may be on the edge of the neighborhood or across a busy road from it.
Before booking, open the hotel in Google Maps and look at what is actually around it. Check the walking distance to wherever you plan to spend most of your time. Look at the street view if available. Also check what is immediately adjacent — a hotel next to a construction site, a karaoke venue, or a major road will affect your stay regardless of how good the property itself is.
What filters actually matter
When searching on Booking.com or Agoda, a few filters make a genuine difference to the quality of your results.
Guest rating is more useful than star rating — filter for properties with a score of 8.0 or above on Booking.com for a reliable baseline. Free cancellation is worth using as a default, particularly when booking in advance, since it lets you hold a reservation while continuing to research. Breakfast included is worth filtering for if you value simplicity, since hotel breakfasts in Vietnam are generally good and the cost when included is usually lower than eating out.
Filters for specific amenities — pool, gym, airport shuttle — are straightforward. What is less obvious is that “air conditioning” should be taken as a given for any property you are seriously considering in Vietnam, particularly in the south and during summer months.
When to book your hotel in Vietnam
One of the most common questions travelers ask before a Vietnam trip is how far in advance they need to book accommodation. The honest answer is: it depends on where you are going, when you are traveling, and how flexible you are willing to be.
How far in advance should you book?
For most destinations in Vietnam during regular travel periods, booking one to four weeks ahead is sufficient. Vietnam has a large supply of accommodation relative to demand at most times of year, and last-minute availability is rarely a serious problem outside of peak periods and specific events.
That said, booking in advance has practical advantages beyond just securing a room. Better properties at popular price points — well-reviewed three and four-star hotels in central locations — do fill up, especially the rooms with the best views or layouts. If you have a specific hotel in mind, booking early with free cancellation costs you nothing and eliminates the risk.
For flexible travelers without strong preferences, arriving without a booking and finding something on the ground is genuinely workable in most Vietnamese towns and cities outside of peak season. The risk is not being stranded — it is ending up somewhere mediocre because you did not have time to research properly.
When you can book last minute
Outside of the periods covered below, last-minute hotel booking in Vietnam is generally low risk. This is particularly true for:
Budget and mid-range accommodation in secondary destinations — places like Ninh Binh, Mui Ne, Hue, and Dalat outside of their peak months have consistent availability. In Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, the sheer volume of hotels means options exist at almost any time, though quality at the last minute varies. Beach destinations like Da Nang and Nha Trang are more seasonal — last-minute works well in low season, less so in the summer months when domestic tourism peaks.
Tet: a completely different situation
Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, is the one period where normal booking logic does not apply. It typically falls in late January or early February, with the exact dates shifting each year.
In the week leading up to and immediately following Tet, domestic travel surges across the entire country. Vietnamese families travel home, resorts fill with locals taking their annual holiday, and accommodation in every popular destination becomes scarce. Prices rise significantly. Transport — buses, trains, and domestic flights — books out weeks in advance.
For foreign travelers, Tet presents a specific challenge: many smaller hotels, restaurants, and services close entirely for several days around the holiday. In some destinations, finding an open hotel with available rooms and functioning facilities during the core Tet days is genuinely difficult.
If your trip overlaps with Tet, book accommodation at least two to three months in advance for any popular destination. The closer you get to the holiday without a booking, the fewer decent options remain. This is the one period in Vietnam where leaving accommodation to chance is a real mistake.
Peak season by region
Vietnam’s geography means that peak season is not the same everywhere. The country stretches across multiple climate zones, and the best time to visit the north, center, and south of the country differs significantly.
In northern Vietnam — Hanoi, Ha Giang, Sapa — the main tourist season runs from September to November and March to May, when the weather is most favorable. December and January bring cold, foggy weather to the north, which keeps some travelers away but also means lower prices and easier availability.
Central Vietnam — Da Nang, Hoi An, Hue — is busiest from February to August, when the weather is dry and warm. From September to January, the region experiences its rainy season, with October and November seeing the heaviest rainfall and occasional typhoons. Availability is generally not a problem during the wet season, but weather can significantly affect the experience.
Southern Vietnam — Ho Chi Minh City, the Mekong Delta, Phu Quoc — has a dry season from November to April that coincides with peak international tourism. Phu Quoc in particular becomes very busy from December to February, and well-reviewed resorts on the island can book out weeks in advance during this window.
The free cancellation strategy
One practical approach that works well for Vietnam travel is to book early with free cancellation as a default. Most properties on Booking.com and Agoda offer free cancellation up to 24 to 48 hours before arrival. This lets you lock in a good option while leaving room to change plans, find something better, or adjust your itinerary.
The alternative — non-refundable rates — are usually only marginally cheaper and eliminate all flexibility. Unless the price difference is significant and your plans are completely fixed, free cancellation is almost always the better choice in Vietnam, where itineraries often shift once travelers are on the ground.
Practical things to know before you arrive
Booking a hotel in Vietnam is straightforward. The experience after arrival is where travelers sometimes encounter things they were not expecting. Most of these are easy to handle once you know about them in advance.
Hotels must register foreign guests
All accommodation providers in Vietnam are legally required to register foreign guests with the local police. This is a standard administrative process — it is not something to be concerned about — but it does affect check-in.
When you arrive at a hotel in Vietnam, staff will ask for your passport to record your details. This is routine and applies to every foreign traveler regardless of nationality. The registration is usually done electronically and takes a few minutes. In remote areas or at very small properties, the process may be more manual, but the requirement is the same.
The passport question
Many hotels in Vietnam will ask to keep your passport overnight or for the duration of your stay. This is common practice but it is not a legal requirement, and you are not obliged to hand it over.
The standard advice is to carry a printed copy of your passport’s photo page and visa, and offer that instead. Most hotels will accept a copy without issue if you ask politely. A handful of smaller properties may push back, but this is rarely a serious problem in practice.
The reason hotels ask to hold passports is a combination of habit, security deposit practice, and occasionally a requirement from local police to have the original document on file. Whatever the reason, keeping your passport in your possession is the safer choice. If your passport is lost or damaged while held by a hotel, recovering it or dealing with the consequences is significantly more complicated than a standard check-in dispute.
One practical step: make digital copies of your passport, visa, and any other key travel documents before your trip and store them somewhere accessible — a cloud folder, an email to yourself, or a travel document app. This takes five minutes and provides genuine protection if anything goes wrong.
Checking in early and checking out late
Standard check-in time at most Vietnamese hotels is 14:00. Standard checkout is 12:00. These times are enforced more strictly at larger hotels and resorts than at small guesthouses, where there is usually more flexibility.
If you are arriving on an early morning flight, it is worth contacting the hotel in advance to ask about early check-in. Many properties will accommodate an early arrival if the room is ready, sometimes for a small additional fee. If the room is not ready, most hotels will store your luggage securely while you wait or go out.
Late checkout works the same way — ask in advance rather than on the morning of departure. During low season or when occupancy is not full, hotels are generally willing to extend checkout by a few hours at no charge. During busy periods, late checkout may come with a fee or may simply not be available.
What is typically included
Breakfast is included in the room rate at a large proportion of Vietnamese hotels, from mid-range properties upward. Vietnamese hotel breakfasts are usually a combination of Western options — eggs, toast, fruit — and local dishes, and are generally good value. When comparing prices between hotels, it is worth factoring in whether breakfast is included, since the cost of eating out each morning adds up across a longer trip.
Wi-Fi is standard across virtually all accommodation in Vietnam, including budget guesthouses. Quality varies — in cities it is usually reliable, in remote mountain areas it can be slow or inconsistent — but it is rarely absent entirely.
Airport transfers are offered by many hotels, usually for a fixed fee. In most cases this is not the cheapest way to get from the airport, but it is the most convenient. If you are arriving late, in an unfamiliar city, or with a lot of luggage, the convenience is often worth the modest premium. In cities with reliable ride-hailing apps like Grab, an independent transfer is usually cheaper and nearly as simple.
Payment: what to expect
Vietnam remains a largely cash-based economy outside of upscale hotels and resorts in major cities. Budget and mid-range properties — particularly guesthouses, mini hotels, and smaller boutique hotels — frequently expect payment in cash on arrival or at checkout, even if you provided card details when booking online.
The card details given at booking are typically used only as a guarantee, not as a charge. Arriving without sufficient cash and finding the hotel does not accept cards is a common and avoidable problem. Withdraw Vietnamese dong before or shortly after arrival, and keep enough on hand to cover accommodation costs for at least the next day or two.
Foreign currencies are not accepted by most hotels across Vietnam. Paying in dong is almost always the better option. Major credit cards are accepted at four and five-star hotels and larger resorts without issue, and the payment infrastructure in cities has improved significantly in recent years — but outside of those contexts, cash remains the practical default.
Common mistakes and traps to avoid
Most hotel disappointments in Vietnam are preventable. They rarely involve anything going seriously wrong — they involve a mismatch between what travelers expected and what they actually booked. These are the most common ones worth knowing about before you search.
Misleading hotel locations
Location descriptions on booking platforms are written by the hotels themselves, and they are not always accurate. The most common version of this problem is the “Old Quarter” hotel in Hanoi that is not actually in the Old Quarter, or the “beachfront” property in a coastal town that requires a ten-minute walk to reach the water.
Before confirming any booking, open the property on Google Maps and verify the location yourself. Check the actual walking distance to wherever you plan to spend your time. Look at the surrounding streets. A hotel that describes itself as “centrally located” may be central by Vietnamese standards — which sometimes means a long ride from the places you want to visit.
This matters more in some destinations than others. In Hoi An, the difference between being inside the historic center and a kilometer outside it significantly affects the experience. In Da Nang, being on the wrong side of a busy coastal road can mean a hotel that is technically beachside but practically inconvenient. Verify rather than assume.
Construction noise
Vietnam is developing rapidly, and construction happens fast and with few restrictions on working hours. A hotel that was quiet last year may now have a building site directly next door running from early morning until late at night. This is one of the most frequently mentioned complaints in hotel reviews across the country, and it is entirely unpredictable from the outside.
The most reliable way to check is to look at recent reviews — from the last two to three months — and search specifically for mentions of noise or construction. Google Maps satellite view can also help: look at the plot of land immediately adjacent to the hotel and check whether it appears to be under development. This is not foolproof, but it catches obvious cases.
When in doubt, contact the hotel directly and ask. A straightforward question — “is there any construction currently near the property?” — will usually get an honest answer. Hotels that are evasive or dismissive in response to this question are worth treating with caution.
Street noise and room position
Independent of construction, noise is a genuine issue in many Vietnamese cities. Streets are busy, motorbikes are loud, and buildings are often not well soundproofed. A street-facing room in a popular tourist area can make sleeping difficult, particularly if the street below has bars or food stalls that stay active late into the night.
When booking, look for properties that mention interior or courtyard-facing rooms, or contact the hotel and specifically request a quiet room away from the street. This is a reasonable ask and most hotels will try to accommodate it. Upper floors on street-facing rooms are sometimes quieter than lower floors, though this varies by building.
Karaoke venues are worth checking for separately. They are common across Vietnam, operate late, and generate significant noise. A hotel that is otherwise well-reviewed can be significantly disrupted by a karaoke bar next door or on the floor below. Again, recent reviews are the best source of this information — it will come up if it is a problem.
Room sizes and natural light
Hotel rooms in Vietnam are often smaller than travelers from Europe, North America, or Australia expect. This is not a quality issue — it is a reflection of land costs, building styles, and the fact that Vietnamese travelers generally have different expectations around personal space.
Budget and mid-range rooms in cities can be genuinely compact. A room described as a “standard double” may be twenty square meters or less. The photos will rarely make this obvious, and the room dimensions are almost never listed on booking platforms.
The natural light issue is related and worth understanding separately. Vietnamese city hotels are built on the same narrow, deep plot system as the shophouses around them — what locals call tube houses. A building may be four or five meters wide and twenty or thirty meters deep. Rooms at the front and back of the building get natural light. Rooms in the middle do not.
Some hotels address this with an internal light well — an open shaft running through the building that lets air and some light reach interior rooms. Others simply have rooms with no window at all, or with a window that opens onto a dark internal corridor. This is most common in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, where land is expensive and buildings are densely packed. It is less of an issue in smaller towns and beach destinations where buildings are wider and lower.
A windowless room is not always listed as such on booking platforms. The photos may show a well-lit room without making it clear that the light source is artificial. If natural light matters to you — and for many travelers it significantly affects comfort over a multi-night stay — look for reviews that mention it, or contact the hotel and specifically ask whether the room has a window with outside-facing natural light. This is a reasonable question and worth asking before you book rather than after you arrive.
If room size matters to you more broadly, look for reviews that mention it. Travelers who found a room too small almost always say so. Upgrading to a superior or deluxe room category at a Vietnamese hotel often buys meaningfully more space for a modest price increase.
The gap between photos and reality
Professional hotel photos in Vietnam are taken with wide-angle lenses, carefully staged furniture, and lighting conditions that rarely match a normal stay. The gap between the photos and the actual room is sometimes significant.
Beyond room size, the most common discrepancies involve views, natural light, and the condition of furnishings. A photo showing a bright, airy room may reflect a corner room that was renovated recently — not the standard room you will actually be assigned. A “sea view” may mean a partial glimpse of water from a specific angle.
Looking at guest-uploaded photos on Google Maps or the photo filters on Booking.com gives a more realistic picture. These images are taken on phones in normal conditions and reflect what guests actually encountered. They are consistently more useful than official hotel photography for setting accurate expectations.
Hotels that have changed or declined
Vietnam’s hotel market moves quickly. Ownership changes, renovations, and shifts in management quality happen regularly, and a hotel’s reputation on booking platforms can lag significantly behind its current reality. A property with a strong overall score built over several years may have declined noticeably in the last six months.
The fix is simple but requires attention: always filter reviews by most recent first, and read the last ten to fifteen reviews before making a decision. If recent reviews are noticeably worse than the overall score suggests, treat that as a warning sign regardless of how good the older reviews are. Conversely, a hotel with a modest overall score but strong recent reviews may be in the middle of a genuine improvement.
Pay particular attention to reviews that mention specific staff members by name — either positively or negatively. In small Vietnamese hotels, the quality of the experience is often tied directly to one or two people. If the owner or manager who made a property special has left, the reviews will usually reflect that over time.
