The meeting to inspect the results of the implementation of environmental sanitation work in the 4 inner-city districts of Hanoi chaired by Chairman of the Hanoi People's Committee Tran Sy Thanh on February 28 had quite surprising information.
That is, in Hanoi, there are currently 351 public toilets - only meeting part of the needs and currently not guaranteed, with a state of disrepair; through the inspection process, due to the time of use, some toilets have peeled and leached structures, affecting the urban landscape.
Surprisingly, a tourist city like Hanoi, in the first 2 months of 2025 alone, welcomed 4.6 million domestic and foreign visitors, and should have had a modern, clean and beautiful public toilet system commensurate with its position.
The fact that the public toilet system does not meet standards not only makes users uncomfortable, but also seriously damages the experience of tourists at the destination.
The synchronously invested public toilet system is an important part to assess the friendliness and civilization of the city.
In particular, for a city that takes tourism and cultural services as a " Sharp advantage", if it causes difficulties for tourists and residents, even having to "find temporary accommodation", it will not only cause great discomfort, negatively affect the landscape but also be a big negative sign of service provision.
Therefore, Hanoi's encouragement of restaurants, hotels, shopping malls, supermarkets... to open to serve the personal hygiene needs of tourists is an urgent solution. Many places such as Hue and Da Nang have applied this method for a long time and have had great success.
Notably, in Da Nang, the "Comfort as at Home" model creates a socialized public toilet network, with the voluntary participation of hundreds of businesses.
Da Nang even integrates the utility of "Community ward, free" on the Danang Smart City application. anyone who downloads the application can locate the nearest toilet, view the distance, directions - meeting the criteria of "smart" and "comfort".
It is this openness and synchronization that significantly reduces the situation of "all mannered hygiene" in public places, while spreading the "Da Nang brand": civilized, clean, modern.
However, in parallel with the solution of socialization and encouragement of restaurants and hotels to open toilets for free, Hanoi must simultaneously upgrade the public toilet system, even meeting the "5-star" standard as many localities have done.
The class of a tourist city is not only demonstrated in the majestic works, but also in the way of solving the most essential and smallest needs of tourists.
Clean toilets, comfortable as at home, easy to find, free will help visitors to Hanoi feel respected, thereby spreading a good impression, promoting the need to return many times.
