Cheap trips targeted in problem-solving push

Visitors tour near the replica of France's Arch of Triumph and Eiffel Tower on display at the World Park in Beijing on Saturday. Tourism authorities received nearly 900 complaints from tourists during the May Day vacation. Andy Wong / Associated Press

China will regulate the tourism market by clamping down on unreasonably cheap trips, according to a senior official at the China National Tourism Administration.

Peng Zhikai, head of the administration's supervision and management division, said that inspection teams were sent to provinces on inspection missions from Thursday to Saturday.

"We found that the tourism market still has many problems and cannot meet tourists' demands," Peng said

"Tourism authorities received nearly 900 complaints from tourists during the three-day holiday at the weekend. The major complaint concerns cheap tours with enforced shopping."

These unreasonably cheap trips are the main problem plaguing the tourism market, Peng said.

According to the administration, by 8 pm on Sunday, provincial-level tourism authorities had received 800 complaints from tourists, with 30 percent of them about scenic spots and 28 percent related to travel agencies.

The majority of the complaints came from popular tourism destinations, including Yunnan, Jiangsu, Henan and Zhejiang provinces, and Beijing and Chongqing.

One case involved a tour guide from Yunnan who was accused of abusing tourists for not spending enough money.

The guide's license was later revoked and she was banned from the tourism business for life. The travel agency that hired the guide was suspended from business for six months and fined 50,000 yuan ($8,330).

Peng said that in the coming months the administration will organize inspections, arrange meetings with travel company representatives and set up monitoring systems.

"We will open more reporting channels to the public, including Sina Weibo, WeChat, e-mail and a hotline," Peng said. "More cases will be exposed to the media so that tourists can see the harm caused by these low-price trips with hidden traps."

Zhang Guangrui, honorary director of the Tourism Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that more complaints from tourists is a good thing for the market from a certain perspective.

"In the past, many tourists chose to remain silent because they didn't have clear views about protecting their rights and were uncertain whether their complaints would be attended to," Zhang said.

"Now tourists care more about their rights, and complaints to tourism authorities will help governments and the industry to improve service."

Zhang said tour guides are not the only ones to be blamed in many cases involving suspected violations of tourists' rights, adding, "I think it is still a problem related to a travel agency's management."

suzhou@chinadaily.com.cn