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Travel advisory - beware of "forced shopping" in Hong Kong
Chinese tourists have had enough. According to the Xinhua news agency, "An undated video clip currently circulating on the Internet shows a Hong Kong tour guide allegedly abusing a group of visitors from the Chinese mainland and forcing them to shop, triggering a backlash from the mainland public." This statement was made on Saturday in conjunction with the National Tourism Administration of China's official travel advisory warning their citizens against Hong Kong's pushy tour guides. Allegedly, some of the tourism agencies are getting kickbacks from the stores where they bring their tours to shop, which drives the tour guides to bully people into shopping. Reuters reports that one 65-year-old man allegedly died after arguing with a tour guide over forced shopping.
This is a scary phenomenon. I know plenty of Americans who can't walk out of a gift shop without getting something because they "feel bad," which I think is ridiculous. Still, if your tour guide is the one pressuring you to shop, how completely helpless would you feel? I mean, who wants to get back in the van with the dude who hates you because you didn't buy anything? Imagine if you were in a strange country and your guide was verbally abusing you. I mean ... come on. That's terrible.
Furthermore, the tour guide is often your ride back from wherever you are, so walking away isn't always an option. If this kind of bullying happens to you, report the incident to your nearest American embassy. To reach "emergency assistance to Americans in foreign countries," call 202-501-4444 (seriously, program that into your phone).
[Photo credit: youngsixta]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Styggiti Jul 19th 2010 3:51PM
I've found this practice to be prevalent with various tours in South Korea as well.
zfalcon Jul 19th 2010 5:41PM
This is hilarious. I've been to tons of tours in mainland China (some with Hong Kong travel agencies, some with American) and every new location the local guide and driver forces you to go to the local (often state sponsored) tourist trap to buy stuff. This is just a taste of their own medicine...
Megawong Jul 21st 2010 5:18PM
This happens in Marrakesh, Morocco and well documented in travel guides.
Heck, at least in Hong Kong they don't try to get you to tip them when you ask for directions. After a purchase, a young store employee pressured us to have him lead us back to the square. We didn't need directions - we knew the souk very well at this point. He walked several feet ahead of us and after a few turns he points us in a direction and asked for payment. We didn't even agree to him leading us! And he didn't even bring us to the square! To get him off our backs we gave him a few coins - to which he scoffed "this is for kids!" and tried to get more from us. So we took it back and left him.
Tom Betz Jul 19th 2010 8:09PM
"Ambush Shopping' is as old as the hills. Note the tour guide is the last to return because he had to receive his 'spiff' (kickback). One gets to a point in their lives when they don't need any more 'stuff'. Don't accept their tea and steel your sales resistance resolve.
David Burren Jul 19th 2010 8:41PM
Sure, program that domestic number into your phone for use overseas. I did a double-take when I read that. Useful backup info, but it's probably easier and cheaper to research LOCAL emergency contact numbers before you arrive in a destination...
Meg Jul 20th 2010 9:37AM
News here in HK has been buzzing over this. There are thousands of Mainlanders on tour here everyday and it's unfortunately not surprising that some have been taken advantage of by the greedy tour operators and harassed by the guides.
Here's a snippet from today's "The Standard": "The [Travel Industry Council] said yesterday that it has issued ultimatums to Golden Win International Travel Services and the tour guide, nicknamed Ah Zhen, demanding they submit their explanations and defense within 14 days, failing which hearings will be held and judgments made in their absence. However, council executive director Tung Yao-chung said police will not be asked to track down the missing guide since no crime was involved."
And as to the man that died, (and this makes it WORSE) it was revealed a few weeks after it happened that the tour guide was unlicensed.
Annie Scott Jul 20th 2010 9:39AM
Wow, Meg. That's fascinating stuff. I'm interested to hear that HK is taking it so seriously. That's good.
SureShot Jul 20th 2010 11:04AM
Cold day in He787LL before anyone forces me to do anything of such..... And by the way I purchased a couple of rings over Ebay from China which states REAL GOLD oh and its even marked....got it and took it to jewelry store because it looked like brass IT WAS. They put fake markings on their items so I would NOT BUY CRAP from any of them.
Louisa Jul 20th 2010 2:24PM
I work for a tour company, so this news isn't anything surprising at all. But what people generally don't know is that tour guides make most of their money from the commission they get from shopping: many guides are freelance and don't have an actual salary. They're paid relatively little for guiding a tour, and so they depend on getting these "kickbacks" and tips. The same goes for tour companies; most of the money that the customer pays for a tour goes into bus rental, air ticket and hotel fees, etc, so the actual company also doesn't make a whole lot of profit. So many also depend on the commissions from customer purchases to stay afloat.
Of course, forcing customers to buy is wrong, and to my knowledge larger tour companies strictly enforce rules that prevent this from happening. At my company if a guide is discovered to have done something like this; s/he is immediately suspended for a period of time, depending on the gravity, and blacklisted to work for other companies.
I'm not trying to justify what this guide did as right; it's not, but I feel like only one side of this situation is being taken into account and had to give my two cents.
rems Jul 28th 2010 2:50AM
went to HK a few months ago and i was also disappointed with the tour company (WIN'S Travel) ...when i came back home, i told my friend and cousin what happened and she told me that she also experienced it 4 years ago!! and was actually a lot worse because they were hard selling the photo's which they have stick on the plate with sky high prices... she was embarassed because the guide won't let them (and other passengers) go down the bus unless she buys all the plates.. and i was still lucky that our tour guide did not do that to me and was not tooo pushy.. i just bought 1 souvenir plate out of goodwill but he even asked me to buy at least 2 but i said NO! firmly... my oh my... it's the first time i encounter such guided tour that hard sells anything.. tipping is actually ok coz we were informed beforehand about that. i just don't like pushy people and dirty tricks..tsk tsk. that's why i sometimes don't like to go on guided tours. but sometimes, it;s the easier route coz you get to a lot of places and with transportation as well....your sure not to get lost.