Hoi An Heritage Hotels During Flooding: Protecting Ground Floors and Informing Guests

Why the low ground floor is the weak point

Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage town of narrow timber 'tube houses' with tiled roofs, built on low ground beside the Thu Bon and Hoai rivers. Seasonal flooding has recurred for generations, with 1964 and 1999 as benchmark years. In late October 2025 the water reached a level not seen since 1999: at the Tan Ky heritage house the flood was about 0.6 m higher than in 1999 but roughly 0.5 m lower than the 1964 record.

The practical consequence for an operator is that you cannot predict the crest to the centimetre, so planning rests on a design flood level, the worst depth documented in your block. Research on Hoi An's listed timber houses finds that about 45% fall into high or very high vulnerability classes, driven by low ground floors, riverfront location and weak preparedness. The ground floor of a heritage hotel is simultaneously the lobby, restaurant, showcase and store, which is why it floods first and hardest.

• Ask the local administration for the historic maximum flood mark in your quarter, not just the average.
• Treat the ground floor as an expendable zone: anything that cannot be lifted should be water-tolerant.
• Assess the building as timber heritage rather than a new concrete shell, since water damages joints and column bases invisibly.

Protecting the ground floor: barriers, lifting stock and power

Protection starts 24-48 hours before a forecast crest. In that window, hotels in low areas move guests from ground-floor rooms upstairs, carry rugs, electronics and soft furniture up, and test pumps and generators. During October 2025 some properties sealed their lowest spaces at midday and still took several centimetres of water into the lobby, so delaying the lift costs directly.

Historic fabric rarely tolerates heavy concrete barriers that could damage load-bearing timber. In practice owners use removable shields and sandbags at doorways, seal low joints, raise sockets and switches above the design flood level, and route wiring and services along upper zones. Valuable interiors, such as paintings, mother-of-pearl inlays and antique furniture, are lifted higher still, yet the 2025 season showed that even raising items a metre does not always save them in a deep flood.

• Map each ground-floor room as lift, abandon or de-energise before the season starts.
• Keep sandbags, sheeting, tape and portable pumps pre-stocked in an accessible spot.
• Mark the actual flood level on a wall after each event, as heritage-house owners do, to recalibrate next season's plan.

Evacuating people and coordinating the response

Once streets flood, the priority is moving guests out safely. In late October 2025 a hotel in the An Hoi low area closed at midday and hired boats to move 12 international guests to safety; some travellers headed to Da Lat or Quang Binh, others moved to higher parts of Hoi An to wait out the water. Another low-lying property held an Australian guest for three days with about 10 cm in the lobby and rising water, urging everyone to stay inside.

These cases show that closing a hotel is a normal safety measure, not a panic reaction, and that guests should be warned in advance rather than at the last moment. Agree in advance with a partner hotel on higher ground, with boat operators and with coach companies, and stock food, water and generator fuel. In 2025 guests worried specifically about food running short and about how long power would last.

• Maintain a guest register with phone and messaging-app contacts and refresh it at every check-in.
• Name the decision-maker and the trigger criteria for closing and evacuating.
• Know your local flood geometry: where depth builds first and where a boat can actually be launched.

Communicating with guests before, during and after the flood

A hotel's resilience in a flood depends less on its structure than on how honestly and how often it informs guests. Practice shows direct channels, such as the hotel's phone and Zalo, work better than OTA call centres, which is why travellers are advised to book direct and keep the property's contact. Guests stranded in October 2025 valued staff who advised against going outside and explained the risks even when the guests themselves felt calm.

Before the flood, give guests a clear plan covering their room, stay and payment, where people from lower floors will move, and how contact is maintained if power fails. During the event, post short updates at least twice daily on water level, food and transport. After the water recedes, communicate when the property will reopen and how rebooking and refunds work. Because repeated rain and new storms can change the picture, the final open-or-closed decision is always made on current official data rather than a fixed schedule.

• Draft message templates in three languages covering warning, update, cancellation, rebooking and refund.
• Define a fallback channel if power and internet fail: notices, district loudspeakers, in-person rounds.
• Write down the compensation policy for interrupted stays and for moving guests to upper floors.

Recovery: drying out and heritage inspection

After the water drops, the biggest mistake is starting cosmetic clean-up before assessing hidden damage. Timber structures and old walls degrade from the inside and the signs are not always visible. Following the 2025 floods, Hoi An's conservation centre invited UNESCO experts to help with the initial assessment, and in January 2026 UNESCO announced emergency support of about US$740,000 for technical assessments and urgent safeguarding at the World Heritage sites of Hue and Hoi An.

A hotel housed in a heritage building must split recovery into two tracks: a fast return to guest service (drying, disinfection, replacing electronics) and a slow structural inspection. Yin-yang tiled roofs, soaked walls, inlays and antique furniture must not be force-dried, because rapid drying causes cracking and colour loss. Budget for a specialist assessment of the timber fabric and get approval from the heritage authorities before any significant repair.

• Do not switch on power or force-dry timber with heat guns until a specialist has assessed it.
• Photograph damage before cleaning starts; the record is needed for insurers and authorities.
• Coordinate restoration with the Hoi An conservation centre when the building is a listed monument.

Limits and responsibility

This guidance is a general readiness and communication framework, not an engineering design or legal advice. Decisions to close, evacuate and compensate are taken by the hotel management together with local authorities (within Da Nang City) and the hydro-meteorological centre for the specific situation. Flood levels and timing change every year, so the design flood level should be reviewed annually against actual data.

For the traveller, the same principles mean: during the wet season choose a hotel on higher ground or with a documented flood plan, book direct for a reliable contact channel, and keep your itinerary flexible. No hotel can guarantee that a flood will not happen, but it can guarantee a clear sequence of actions and honest information, which is usually what guests value most.