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Lo Hoi-ying

Hong Kong authorities striking off a tour guide for threatening mainland Chinese visitors to make them spend has shown that low-cost trips with shopping excursions are still rife, despite the city turning its focus to in-depth tourism.
Tourism industry representatives told the Post on Saturday the revocation of tour guide Lam Chun-fai’s licence served as a warning that such behaviour was unacceptable.
While some said the incident would not affect Hong Kong’s reputation as a tourist destination, another representative said the news had harmed the sector, which was already struggling to recover post-pandemic.
The Post found multiple posts on popular mainland social media platform Xiaohongshu of users complaining about negative experiences with tour groups in Hong Kong.
Most of the tours cost less than 1,000 yuan (US$141) and are usually multi-day trips that cover Hong Kong and the neighbouring cities of Macau and Zhuhai.
On top of a packed itinerary with around 30 minutes at each tourist attraction, travellers are brought to shops selling jewellery, health supplements, watches and chocolates and are made to stay for more than an hour.
“The shopping part was not included in our itinerary, and the guide told me we could leave early only if we made purchases. Although they said buying was not mandatory, we were made to stay for two hours,” one user said.
“I advise everyone who is signing up for a tour to open your eyes, any tour that costs less than the market rate will definitely include shopping.”
The Travel Industry Authority on Friday struck off Lam’s licence after some members of a mainland tour group complained that he had berated those who were reluctant to spend and threatened the group that the trip could be affected if they did not buy goods at designated shops.
The incident was reminiscent of a high-profile case in 2010, where tour guide Li Hau-chun lectured mainland tourists for not spending enough at a jewellery store, reducing her commission.

In the viral video, Li was seen shouting at a tour group from Anhui, telling them “it’s OK to be poor at home but not in Hong Kong” and saying that the tourists “owed her” for providing them with food and accommodation.
She later publicly apologised for wrecking the city’s reputation as a tourist destination.
Hong Kong Tourism Association executive director Timothy Chui Ting-pong said that Lam’s incident was an isolated one and did not think it would affect Hong Kong’s reputation as a tourist destination.
Chui said that the number of low-cost tours in Hong Kong where tourists are made to shop has largely decreased since 10 years ago, and two-thirds of local tours now are in-depth sightseeing tours.
“In order to put an end to the situation where tour guides have to rely on commission from their customers’ spending, every guide has been paid a basic salary of HK$1000 a day since 2019, which increased to HK$1,200 a day after borders reopened last year,” he said.
“I cannot see why there is a need to force tourists to shop. If the HK$1,200 a day is not enough for them, then that is a matter of personal greed.”
He emphasised that forcing guests to shop would not result in greater spending as customers would only make purchases when they are happy.
The Hong Kong government has been strongly promoting the city as a tourist destination since borders with mainland China reopened last year, pushing for in-depth tourism and rolling out a politeness campaign to target issues of poor service.
Fanny Yeung Shuk-fan, the executive director of the Travel Industry Council, said on the contrary, the incident should make tourists more confident in the industry as it showed that regulators were doing their job.
“I think we are going through a transitional phase in recent years. Maybe such “forced to shop” incidents happened in the past, but we also need time to develop in-depth tourism.”
Yeung said the industry should not do away completely with such low-cost tours as there is still market demand from tourists, while some customers are happy to make purchases.
“Every product has its crowd, and every tourist has different spending abilities. We should provide a choice for these customers and not eradicate these tours completely,” she said.
However, Sara Leung Fong-yuen, chairwoman of the Hong Kong Tourism Industry Employees General Union, said striking off tour guide Lam does not target the root cause of the problem with the low-cost tours.
“The tour guide is under pressure to earn commission when managing these low-cost groups when there is such a huge gap between the operator’s cost and the price of the package,” she said.
She said authorities should step up their regulation of the operators of these tours tapping into the greed of consumers, who she called the main culprits damaging the reputation of the sector.
“Frankly, many consumers are scrimping and know that they are paying for prices lower than the cost-price, but think they can get away without shopping,” she said.
“This causes discrepancy with the tour guides, who know the tourists are unwilling to spend, and hence care less about their service attitudes and go all out to ensure they earn a commission.”


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Some tourism officials say incident is isolated, while others stress it has harmed the sector’s reputation


Some tourism officials say incident is isolated, while others stress it has harmed the sector’s reputation.


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