DOT suspends Town Back garden Grand Hotel’s accreditation for Covid-19 breach
The Philippine Department of Tourism (DOT) has revoked the certificate of authority to run and suspended for six months the accreditation of the Town Garden Grand Resort, for breaking Covid-19 safety policies primary to the loss of life of a flight attendant immediately after a New Year’s revelry held at the assets.
Alongside this, the DOT gave a “stern warning” to the industry that motels used as quarantine services must not take leisure attendees and host social gatherings, though staycation motels can not be utilized for quarantine.
City Yard Grand Lodge, a quarantine lodge in Makati, broke the rules when, on New Year’s Eve, it acknowledged a team of revellers such as 23-yr-outdated flight attendant Christine Dacera, who died immediately after currently being observed unconscious in her resort room’s bathtub on New Year’s Day.
The DOT found City Garden Grand Lodge “liable for the offence of gross and obvious undesirable religion in working with customers/fraudulent solicitation of company or creating any false, misleading, or misleading claims or statements for the function of soliciting business enterprise from clients”.
“Upon investigation, the Town Yard Grand Hotel was discovered to have misrepresented by itself to the public as getting permitted to accommodate company for leisure or staycation applications despite currently being a quarantine facility,” the DOT stated in a assertion.
The DOT Nationwide Money Region investigation also had “pieces of proof (that) confirmed that even prior to the incident and until now, the Metropolis Garden Grand Hotel is advertising and marketing offers to acknowledge leisure guests and by no means indicated that it is a quarantine hotel”.
The lodge, which has also been slapped with a 10,000 pesos (US$208) fine, has the suitable to attraction in the time period approved by DoT rules and restrictions.
Even ahead of City Backyard Grand Hotel’s violation, tourism secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat has been receiving problems of quarantine lodges within and exterior metro Manila accepting staycation guests and letting social gatherings.
“This is not appropriate and must not be tolerated,” Romulo-Puyat said in a preceding statement.
As of January 10, a full of 765 accommodations nationwide with a mixed 72,547 rooms are listed as quarantine amenities for returning abroad Filipino personnel.
Only four- and five-star lodges are authorized to operate as staycation accommodations, with only 15 of them in metro Manila obtaining been issued the Certificate of Authority to Operate as Staycation.
Like others in the business, hospitality advisor Jerome dela Fuente, stated the lodge violator was lucky that it only obtained a 6-month suspension and that the US$208 fine is way too tiny. The penalties for quarantine inns violating conditions of accreditation must be tightened to reduce more breaches, he added.
