The new law requires travel agencies to obtain permission from and register with local governments and forbids agencies from using unreasonably low prices to lure customers and make money by taking them to shop or attractions that require additional fees. Offenders face a fine of 300,000 yuan (US$49,000) or more.
Insiders in the industry say such day trips account for more than 90% of Beijing's tourism market. Each advertises itself as a "no shopping and high-end tour" and charges tourists between 60 yuan (US$9.80) and a couple of hundred yuan according to the itinerary.
These agencies often operate using multiple names and attract tourists by distributing flyers at train stations, setting up websites and working with hotels. A tour guide working for one of the agencies said the names are not really significant and agencies freely pass customers to another agency when they are overwhelmed by tourist numbers, as has been the case with this week's "Golden Week" National Day holidays. However, the paper's reporter who posed as a tourist noticed that the guide's agency charged tourists at different rates.
The guide di d not take the tourists to the Badaling section of the Great Wall as advertised but rather to the Juyongguan section. He then informed the group that they were not going inside the Ming Dynasty Tombs because it is unlucky to pose for pictures at a cemetery. All tourists could see was a brick wall. The guide said there is not much to see at the Bird's Nest and Water Cube during the day and that he would leave the tourists at a subway station so they could buy a 2-yuan (US$0.33) ticket to the two Olympic venues if they wished. Later the group was taken to a jade shop and to a fortune teller, where many clients spent thousands on jade items and good luck fortunes.
A staff member of a travel agency said the firm's 240-yuan (US$39) one-day tour did not include the Ming Dynasty Waxworks Palace. Tourists must pay an additional fee to visit the attraction, which is how the agency makes its profits.
The contracts and information regarding these ille gal day trips are often false, making it difficult for tourists to obtain evidence against them. The amounts of money involved are likewise relatively small, meaning that few tourists are unwilling to take legal action if they feel they have been defrauded, said Liu Simin, a researcher with the tourism research center of the Chinese Academy of Social Science.
Source: Want China Times
from China Travel & Tourism News http://www.chinatraveltourismnews.com/
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