That is a rather humorous but noteworthy viewpoint of MC, Master Trinh Le Anh - lecturer of Tourism and Events, Hanoi National University about the problems in building and managing public toilets.

Regarding the story of "knowing, suffering, talking forever" about public toilets, a young Hanoian - MC Le Anh - expressed concern about the shortcomings in the construction and management of public toilets, the lack and uneven distribution of existing public toilets in Hanoi.

Master Le Anh on a trip to learn about the cultures of African countries.

He started with a story in the tourism industry, a place in Hanoi that has been recognized as a world record and is known to many international friends, which is the Ceramic Road: "Currently, the Ceramic Road cannot be included in Hanoi's city tours as a tourist attraction for the simple reason that there is no place to stop and it is not convenient at all if tourists need to "go to the toilet" there."

Analyzing this issue, MC Le Anh said that when training in professional customer service in the tourism industry, a detail that is almost obvious to all tourism students is that every time a car arrives at a stop or a tourist destination, there must be a restroom for tourists to "relieve themselves" before or after visiting. On average, every 2-3 hours, a person needs to take a quick break outside of the vehicle and take care of "going to the restroom".

To meet that very humane need, the tourism industry has operated well by using a multi-service system at stopovers in the closed tourism circle. In developed countries such as China, Thailand and European countries, stopovers are built very professionally to create comfort for tourists and local people when they need to use the toilet. However, in Vietnam, that phrase is still quite unfamiliar when most people and even managers do not fully understand the meaning of that phrase.

MC Le Anh analyzed: “Why not turn public toilets into service stalls? And the people who currently sit by the door of public toilets will become sales people, guiding tourists? And any visitors who stop by will be able to use the toilet for free, then they can buy something. That is stopover!”.

According to the reporter's observation, most of the public toilets currently in operation have drink vendors, motorbike taxi drivers, etc. gathered nearby, which shows that there is a need to do business at public toilets. However, these businesses are mostly small and spontaneous, making many tourists feel insecure when entering these public toilets.

“With such a business need, why don’t we reorganize the model to become a civilized business location?” – Master Le Anh continued to ask questions about this situation.

In response to the Hanoi Department of Construction’s decision not to build new public toilets in 2016, Master Le Anh affirmed: “This is an ill-considered decision for the people and tourists!” This means that there will continue to be questions left by foreign tourists such as it is very difficult to find a toilet, having to pay to use the toilet, often being treated unsympathetically by the toilet guards… Clearly, this is a bad impression for the tourism industry as well as the image of Hanoi, Vietnam.

MC Le Anh also admitted that currently, urban infrastructure in Vietnam is not keeping up with the development of modern life, managers also have too much work to do, but perhaps, we should not ignore the small things that have a major impact on the bad habits of Vietnamese people: defecating in public places!

Having traveled a lot and explored many places in and outside the country, MC Le Anh humorously said: "You or I have probably thought about removing the "subsidized" image for public toilets in Hanoi, to socialize or simply let the private sector participate in the "toilet business"!

Strange idea, good (!) but difficult to implement. Tourists only have a very small limit of needs related to this issue, they also proactively "solve" their personal needs without trying to find the words "public toilet"! They will look around and proactively go to shopping centers, hotels, large restaurants or convenience stores/stores..."

According to this MC, let's turn existing public toilets into multi-service stopovers - products by providing free "toilet" services based on the benefits from customers coming in and out of the store at the stopover!

Once again, Master Trinh Le Anh affirmed that it is not only necessary to continue building new public toilets but also necessary to change, "put on a new coat for public toilets" to turn those places - instead of the words Public Toilet on the signboard - into models of stopovers/tourist information centers...

In addition, local authorities and decentralized management forces must also step in to monitor and even punish "public" places such as supermarkets, service counters, hotel lobbies or in the future stopovers that show signs of refusing to provide free service to the hygiene needs of tourists and residents.

Small things, if talked about too much, can easily become jokes: "In addition to the regulation of equipping fire extinguishers in cars, we also have to recommend (or) require the equipment to serve human hygiene needs..!".

According to Infonet