Our reporters Li Yuze and Mao Jun
The 2022 national postgraduate entrance examination will be held from December 25th to 27th, and the number of applicants nationwide will reach 4.57 million, a record high.
Many hotels and guesthouses around the test sites in many places have become "short-selling goods", making it hard to find a room, and some "postgraduate entrance examination rooms" have even increased their prices by more than 10 times.
The reporter interviewed the postgraduate entrance examination students and learned that the general idea of the students is that "the two most critical days, you have to bite the bullet and spend a little bit closer to the school."
Xiao Wu, a candidate for the "Postgraduate Entrance Exam World War II" in Nanjing, Jiangsu, has experience in choosing a "postgraduate entrance examination room". To ensure a smooth "landing" for the postgraduate entrance examination, he booked a hotel near the test center on the day the test center was announced.
"It's about 3 times the usual price. The later you book, the more expensive. Last year, because I was reluctant to stay at a hotel at a high price, I lived far away. It took more than an hour on the road. There was an exam, because the traffic jam on the road almost missed it." Xiao Wu said.
Xiao Zhang, a student who came to Chengdu for the postgraduate entrance examination, told reporters: “I’m very helpless, usually 55 yuan per night, but 565 yuan per night in the past few days. My heart is really unbalanced. My parents give me a month of living expenses. 1,000 yuan is not enough to stay in a hotel for two days, but for the convenience of the postgraduate entrance examination, I can only grit my teeth and "bleed"."
The above-mentioned problems are not unique. When the reporter visited the test center in Nanjing Xianlin University Town, the prices of hotels, hotels, and homestays generally increased.
The reporter searched multiple travel apps and found that the prices of various types of hotels around the postgraduate entrance examination sites in many cities have risen to varying degrees, and some have even risen to about 10 times the usual price.
In Guangzhou, the usual room for 80 yuan a night next to a college test center has recently risen to more than 700 yuan due to the postgraduate entrance examination; in Nanchang, most of the staff of more than 20 hotels near the test center of Nanchang Normal University told reporters that "there was no room during the postgraduate entrance examination. Yes, some students started booking two months ago, and the room price has risen about 5 times than usual.”
It is difficult to find a room around many test sites across the country, and some spaces that are not easy to live or even cannot live in are also sold at high prices.
A hotel operator in Shenyang said that during the exam, she simply cleaned the free utility room and sold it.
She told reporters that “this room is about 10 square meters, has only one bed and no windows, and it can sell for more than 300 yuan a night during the exam.” In addition, the manager of Nanjing Qingmu Hotel Tonghuai Street Branch told reporters: “Now There is no room left. If you want to live in, you can live in the staff dormitory. If the price is too high, you can go to Jiangbei to find a hotel, which is cheap, but it takes more than an hour to take the subway to the test center.” There is also a sofa in the lobby of the hotel. The office has also become a "guest room." Mr. Wang's child in Zhengzhou sprained his foot from playing basketball, so he had to accompany the child to the exam.
Mr. Wang told reporters: "Unexpectedly, the rooms are so tight that they will pay a high price for a small single room for the children. He can only sleep on the sofa in the lobby, and some parents spend money to live in the hotel office."
Some businesses have expressed their "difficulties."
"Now that we are catching up with the'epidemic', there is usually little passenger flow, and there is no money at all. However, collective price increases during postgraduate exams and civil service exams are a common practice. It is not a single price increase. This is the case for hotels near the university city. "Some merchants said: "There are tens of thousands of people taking the provincial and national exams. This is clearly marked. If you want to live, no one will force you."
The reporter learned from the market supervision departments in many places that in recent years, there have been a lot of reports and complaints about the phenomenon of "highly-priced postgraduate entrance examination rooms", but the governance has been ineffective.
The staff of the market supervision department in many places said: "Hotels have the right to set prices independently. If the hotel is clearly marked and there is no price fraud, the supervision department will not have a legal basis to intervene in the price increase. The key lies in the actual operation of the'excessive price. 'There is no clear definition, the existing relevant regulations are rather vague, and supervision is indeed difficult.'
The staff of Jiangsu Provincial Market Supervision and Administration Bureau stated that the focus of our supervision is that the price is clearly marked and the actual transaction amount is high. At the same time, we have also conducted some interviews with merchants with excessively high prices.
The moderate price increase is in line with market expectations. However, if merchants have excessive prices, unilateral withdrawal of rent, and clearly marked prices that do not match the transaction prices, consumers can complain to the market supervision department.
The reporter's investigation found that some related problems caused by the shortage of "postgraduate entrance examination rooms" have not been effectively brought into the vision of regulatory authorities in many places.
Acts such as selling "offices" and "sofa rooms" to candidates are clearly in violation of relevant regulations, not only infringing consumers' right to fair transactions, but also possibly causing damage to consumers' personal safety.
According to the relevant regulations of our country, the operators of hotels and guesthouses shall not sell the non-operating space to consumers, and the accommodation space shall meet the relevant safety and health regulations.
Liu Junhai, director of the Institute of Commercial Law of Renmin University of China and vice-chairman of the China Consumers Association, once publicly stated that the "extraordinarily expensive postgraduate entrance examination room" is actually a violation of the legitimate rights and interests of consumers under the cloak of "pricing freedom".
Candidates are obviously in a disadvantaged position in the transaction, and they accept the "high price" room rate because of the "rigid demand" under the mentality of "spending money to buy smoothly".
During the postgraduate entrance examination, the hotel’s “willful” price increase violates the relevant provisions of the Civil Code on the principle of fairness, and the use of the opportunity to slaughter guests is clearly against market ethics.
Liu Junhai suggested that relevant laws and regulations should be improved to clarify the legal boundary between "legal price increase" and "illegal price increase". Relevant departments in various regions can formulate guiding prices on the basis of comprehensive consideration of various factors. In order to crack down on the behavior of pushing up prices and colluding to increase prices.
Xiong Bingqi, dean of the 21st Century Education Research Institute, also said that the postgraduate entrance examination is a normalized "big exam" with more than 4 million candidates, and the provision of corresponding protection for postgraduate candidates deserves the attention of the society.
He called on the education department to set up test sites more reasonably, and other relevant departments should also provide reasonable protection for matters involving the rigid needs of candidates, which is conducive to fundamentally addressing the problem of "expensive postgraduate entrance examination rooms".