What Vietlume Studio is
Vietlume Studio is the part of Vietlume for two roles:
- Creator — you travel, take photos and write things down. You send your own photos, field notes, collections and trips you have actually made. Your contributions appear on place pages, with your name.
- Place owner — you own or run a place to stay (hotel, homestay, guesthouse, villa, resort) or a restaurant or café, and you list it on Vietlume.
You can choose one role or both. Each role is reviewed separately, and whichever is approved first opens first.
Studio may be closed for a time. When it is, the Studio page says so, and what you have already sent is kept.
Becoming a creator
A creator application includes:
- The display name printed under each of your photos and notes — a pen name is fine.
- The region you travel in most.
- 3 samples you photographed or wrote yourself.
- Optionally, up to 5 links to places where you have published — seen only by the reviewer, never shown publicly.
- Three independence commitments. You can only send the application if you agree to all three:
- "I don't take money, gifts or free rooms to write about a place without saying so."
- "I don't write notes or rate places I own or work at."
- "The photos I send are mine, and I choose their licence."
Vietlume does not pay for contributions and does not sell ranking positions.
A Vietlume moderator reviews your application. The outcome is one of three:
- Approved — Creator Studio appears in your account menu.
- More information needed — you open the application to reply.
- Not approved — you see the reason the reviewer wrote, and can apply again after 30 days.
Sample photos are deleted once the application has an outcome. The text, the links and the reviewer's reason are kept with the application.
Creator contributions
Every contribution is reviewed by a moderator before it is shown publicly. If something is not accepted, you see the reason the reviewer wrote.
You do not contribute to a place you own, manage or work at. Vietlume blocks this for every place you have ever claimed through Studio.
Photos.
- Photos must be taken by you, with no one else's logo or mark on them.
- Photos showing a stranger's face clearly in the foreground are not accepted without that person's consent.
- Up to 10 photos per upload, up to 15 MB each. The date taken is read from the photo, and you can correct it.
- Hidden information in the file, including where it was taken, is removed before storage.
You keep the copyright in your photos, and you choose a licence when you send them:
- Vietlume only (the default) — Vietlume may show the photo on Vietlume, always with your name; others may not reuse it. Vietlume does not use these photos in the preview card shown when a Vietlume link is pasted into another app.
- CC BY 4.0 — anyone may use it, including commercially, as long as they credit you.
- CC0 — given to the public outright, no credit needed.
Every photo is shown with "Photo: <your display name> · creator" and its licence, keeping the name you had when you sent it. CC BY and CC0 are public licences: once a photo is published, others may already have used it under that licence.
Field notes — something you saw with your own eyes that the place page does not yet say: the path, when it gets crowded, where to stand, what to bring.
- The day you visited must be within the last 60 days. A note is 20 to 500 characters.
- Attach at least one photo you took there as evidence. The reviewer uses it to know you were there; only the photos you choose are shown with the note.
- No prices, no opening hours, no advertising, no phone numbers.
- A note shows "Visited on …", and leaves the place page 12 months after the day you visited.
- Readers can tap "Helpful"; only the total is shown.
Collections — open to you from level 2. A collection is one real question travellers ask about an area, plus 5 to 10 places that answer it, each with a reason.
Trips you have made — you publish one of your own trips on your profile. A public trip shows its name, days and places; never your travel dates, costs, notes or the people on the trip. Others can copy it into their own trips. You can take it down from public view at any time.
Field notes, collections and trips use the same minimal licence as all user content (Terms of Use, section 3): you keep the copyright in what you write, and give Vietlume only the right to show it on Vietlume — the website and the app — with the display name from your Studio application, non-exclusively and free of charge. Others saving your collections or copying your trips, as described above, happens within Vietlume. That right lasts until the content leaves Vietlume; published collections stay after you delete your account, as in section 6. Photos follow the licence you chose above, not this paragraph.
Points, levels and rankings
Every contribution a reviewer accepts adds points to your points ledger:
- A photo accepted: 3 points. Only 10 of your photos per place per month count; later ones are still accepted, without points.
- A photo chosen as a place's cover: 5 more points.
- A field note accepted: 4 points.
- A collection published: 10 points; each other person who saves it: 1 point.
- A trip approved for public view: 6 points; each other person who copies it: 1 point.
Each account counts only once per item. Saves or copies from accounts less than 7 days old, or from yourself, do not count.
An accepted contribution that is later removed after a report costs 10 points, and the points it earned are taken back.
Only you and Vietlume's operators see your points. Others see your level — Tia nắng, Vành hoa văn, Vành chim Lạc, Vành thuyền, Mặt trống — and your monthly rank if you have one. Each level needs enough points plus a few other conditions, such as accepted notes or the number of places you have contributed to; Studio tells you what is still missing. You can drop a level when points are taken away, and the top level requires no contribution removed in the last 6 months.
The monthly board ranks accepted contributions by points, region by region. A region's board opens once at least 3 creators have points that month. The top three of a month wear a glow around their level emblem for the whole next month. Followers and views do not count.
Vietlume's picks: each month Vietlume hand-picks up to 3 people, with a written reason. Being picked adds no points.
Points, levels and monthly ranks are not money and cannot be exchanged for money or gifts.
Vietlume does not currently pay for contributions or sell anything through Studio. If that changes, the Studio Terms will be updated and you will be asked to agree again.
Place owners
Claiming a place already on Vietlume. You choose the place, say whether you are the owner, a manager or authorised staff, and pick one way to prove it:
- Sign photo with a code — Vietlume gives you a code; you write it on paper and photograph it next to the place's sign within 14 days.
- Business registration — a photo or PDF, up to 15 MB. Cover your ID card number on the document before uploading.
- Call-back — a reviewer calls the place's publicly listed phone number and reads out a code; you enter that code in Studio.
Proof photos and documents are stored privately, can be opened only by reviewers, and are deleted once the request has an outcome. A request not decided after 44 days closes by itself, and its proof photo is deleted too.
Each place has only one confirmed owner. If a place already has one, a new request cannot be approved on top of it.
Listing a new place to stay. You enter the type, location, rooms, facilities, house rules and contact. A new listing stays hidden until a moderator confirms it is a real place to stay, still operating, and of the type stated. A "room for rent" here means only a room let to travellers by the night.
Editing information. Opening hours, phone, website, indicative price, menu, check-in and check-out times, and a lodging's rules and facilities take effect at once. Changing the name, location or type is reviewed first. For some places Vietlume has locked, every change waits for a reviewer.
Lodging prices are indicative, by month and room type. Vietlume does not sell rooms, take bookings or take commission. You can add several booking links; Vietlume strips tracking parameters from them, accepts only https links, tries to open them regularly, and hides links that no longer open — and tells you.
What you enter for your place is information about the business: it is public and stays with the place, even if you delete your account. Your name and account are not shown on the place page.
The verified mark. A place you own carries the "Verified by owner" mark next to its name, with the date of the latest confirmation. Every time you save information or press confirm counts as confirming again. After 6 months without confirming, Vietlume reminds you. After 9 months the mark turns grey with the line "Owner needs to reconfirm", and lodging prices stop showing on the page. Vietlume takes no money for this mark, and the mark does not move a place ahead of others.
What the owner role does not do. You do not write field notes, send photos for points, rate, or vote "worth going?" for a place you have claimed — Vietlume blocks these for every place you have ever claimed, whether the request is pending, approved or not approved. Place owners are not on the creator board, and edits you make to your own place do not count on the contributor board or show as contributions on your profile.
The owner role does not let you hide or delete other people's comments, ratings or votes about your place. If a comment breaks the rules, report it like any other user.
When a contribution is removed, or a role ends
- An accepted contribution may be removed after a report. It leaves the public pages, and you lose points as in section 4.
- Vietlume may withdraw your creator role. You can then no longer send new contributions.
- The verified mark turns grey if you do not reconfirm within 9 months, as in section 5.
- When you delete your account: your application, field notes, points ledger, monthly ranks, published trips, owner rights and "Vietlume only" photos are deleted, and the place you own stops carrying the verified mark. Published CC BY and CC0 photos are kept under the licence you granted, still credited with the name you used, but no longer linked to any profile. Business information, booking links and published collections stay, no longer tied to your account; a collection still shows the display name you had when you published it.
Relationship to the Terms of Use
These terms add to Vietlume's Terms of Use. What the Terms of Use say about prohibited content, moderation, reporting, blocking, changes to the terms, governing law and contact also applies to Studio. When the Studio Terms change, Vietlume follows exactly the process in section 12 of the Terms of Use.
Current version: 2026-10-v1.