[Text/Observer.com columnist Li Pingzhang]
Recently, the “40 yuan 4 days and 3 nights low-price tour in Guilin” has attracted the attention of netizens.
official said in a report on July 16, “Based on the evidence currently available, the local travel agency Guilin Wonderful International Tourism Co., Ltd. is suspected of organizing unreasonable low-price tours, and the local travel agency tour guides Li and Huang are suspected of making false information to tourists. Promoting and selling goods..."
As soon as the official notification came out, the incident came to an end. It is necessary to mention that similar incidents are still happening elsewhere.
Shopping groups, also known as "gambling groups" in the industry
Anyone who has experienced group travel has encountered or at least heard of mandatory shopping. This phenomenon has been going on for many years. When I was a child, I heard a lot about shopping tours that deceive people. It is still like this after all these years. It can be said to be a chronic disease in the tourism market.
In fact, the country has stipulated the prohibition of forced shopping as early as 2013 in the "Tourism Law": "Article 9 Tourists have the right to independently choose tourism products and services, and have the right to refuse forced transactions by tourism operators." However, There are policies and countermeasures, but the relevant practitioners are contradicting them, saying, "I'm not forcing you, I just keep advising you. As for the air conditioner not turning on and the bus being broken, these are objective factors, and we apologize. When will it get better? This It’s hard to say. ”
I have been immersed in the tourism industry for more than ten years, and I know something about shopping groups directly or indirectly, so I would like to share with you my friends.
Take the "famous" Yunnan shopping group as an example. People will first screen out customers: young people are not wanted, and those who are too old are not wanted; foreign guests from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan are not wanted, ethnic minorities are not wanted, teachers, reporters and lawyers are not wanted; but not many men are wanted. , pregnant women and those with diseases should not take it; people from Nanyang, Henan, Sihui and Jieyang, Guangdong should not take it. Why does
set these thresholds? Because:
People who are too old have no purchasing power;
Young people and men can make trouble and have strong physical strength. If there is really a physical conflict, five or six young men unite and it is enough to overthrow a group of people from travel agencies and shopping stores;
Foreign guests, Hong Kong and Macao If Taiwanese and ethnic minorities cause trouble, it will easily involve other departments, which will be detrimental to black travel agencies;
Teachers, reporters, and lawyers basically understand the law and are relatively united, and are not easily deceived and intimidated;
Pregnant women and those with illnesses are afraid of coercion. A life was lost during the shopping process, and the matter became a big deal;
Nanyang in Henan, Sihui and Jieyang in Guangdong are centers for jade and jade exchanges. The locals are likely to know some jewelry knowledge and are not easy to cheat.
In addition to the above, many stores will first look at the customers when they come up. They can see through at a glance whether you are a troublemaker, and then decide whether to accept or not. This is their "industry experience".
From the above, it can be seen that their target audience is very clear, that is: middle-aged to old people, greedy for petty gains, afraid of the government and do not know how to protect their rights, and honest and obedient people at the bottom.
Looking at it from the other side, this is why many people still flock to the so-called "9 yuan and 9 eggs a day" tour groups that can be seen by discerning people at a glance. How could the participants not know there was a problem? It's just that their mentality is "Isn't it enough to survive a few hours without spending any money?" "Be patient, the key is to get the eggs in the end." However, many of them couldn't hold it back in the end and were deceived and threatened to spend a lot of money to buy back a bunch of junk.
Compulsive shopping mostly occurs when a group travel has just begun. The most critical point at this time is that the travelers are not familiar with each other and it is difficult to unite and form an organization.
Human nature is reflected in the fact that when participating in group activities and there is danger, the first reaction is to observe the reactions of others. At this time, if the black tour guide is skilled, he will directly interrupt the self-organization process of the tourists, so that no one will stand up in the whole process, and he will be able to successfully realize the harvest; if the tourists form an organization, the conflict will become organization versus organization, Black tour guides are almost impossible to harvest - this is one of the reasons why they don't want teachers to join shopping groups, because most of the teachers come from the same school and are really organized.It is not uncommon for individual warriors to jump out and single-handedly attack black tour guides and the black shop organizations behind them, but it is rare.
The situation of forced shopping basically occurs on local travel agencies.
Group tours are generally divided into two parts: tour groups and ground agencies. The group agencies solicit tourists and send out tour leaders (sometimes with tour guides), while the ground agencies provide drivers, vehicles or tour guides. However, small tour groups and local travel agencies rarely fund full-time tour guides themselves, so tour guides basically have tour guide certificates attached to a certain travel agency, and they pick up jobs on their own. Whoever is called in the WeChat group and is free will go. Freelance practice is not a bad thing, but the problem is that the travel agency cannot give a decent salary, the basic salary is very low, and if they can't receive orders, they don't have much income, so they can only find ways to make money on their own. (The worse ones are the black travel agencies that go out on their own and lead tour guides and black shops to harvest customers. This kind of situation is more destructive to the industry.)
Generally speaking, there are two ways for tour guides to get commissions: one is based on the number of people , one is based on trading volume.
Specifically speaking, shopping stores will not be too shady in terms of rebates based on the number of people, because they are also mostly scenic spots and need to report the number of tourists to the Tourism Bureau. They are under the jurisdiction of the Tourism Bureau, so the rebates will not be too shady; and based on the transaction The ones with a certain amount of rebate will generally be much darker. After all, the income of tour guides is basically obtained by deceiving tourists into buying high-priced and low-quality things - "If you don't buy it, I won't have the money to take it. How could I not scold you?" "Even if I deceive you, you will return You don’t even know my name, how can you complain to me?”
Therefore, shopping groups are also called “gambling groups” in the industry - they come to travel with you with the mentality of a gambler trying to open up jade, which is gambling. The amount of purchases you make when entering a shopping store.
I work in inbound tourism. Compulsory shopping behavior is relatively less common in this segment, but it still exists, especially before the epidemic. On the one hand, language is a threshold, and not all black tour guides can speak fluent foreign languages. On the other hand, they tend to let customers buy it softly. Foreigners don’t understand the Chinese market anyway. Such a large jade is priced at 200,000, but in the end you can take it away for “only” 8,000. Isn’t it cool? Travelers who don’t understand jade culture may really feel that their purchase is worth it and they are very happy.
In addition, some practitioners will also classify inbound tourism groups into three, six or nine grades. For example: Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and overseas Chinese groups are not slaughtered very much, because they really understand the routines of mainland shopping groups, and if something happens, there will be Overseas Chinese Affairs Office and Foreign Affairs Office to deal with it; people from Southeast Asia, Japan, South Korea, the Middle East, and Africa , Latin America, then just cheat, and you can count them all; when it comes to European and American white people, they don't cheat or kill, they just serve you, for fear of offending the "high-end customers".
Why are stubborn diseases difficult to solve?
Many people have a weak understanding of forced shopping: these black travel agencies and black shopping stores not only violate the "Tourism Law", but are sometimes even suspected of the crime of forced transaction in the criminal law.
However, the tourism management department does not have the power to enforce the law. When the police dispatch the police, they may blame the tourism department first. There are also people at the grassroots level who have the possibility of transferring profits to illegal shopping stores. In other words, this is a line with countless mouths connected behind it. This is where it becomes difficult to start. This is why even if public opinion gets louder, the higher-level departments will issue guidance and clear out the government in a stormy manner. After the news is over, similar chaos will arise again.
Stubborn problems are difficult to eliminate, not only because of insufficient understanding of things, but also because of too many constraints. So what should we do? As a small soldier in the tourism industry, I can only speak briefly. The solution ideas of
can be divided into two types: soft and hard.
Or, market problems should be solved with market methods. If the situation of low-priced tour groups being ripped off continues to be exposed, consumers will stop going or not sign up for group tours after seeing this. If there is no one to be ripped off by black tour guides and black shops, then the tourism market will It will be much clearer; after a while, word-of-mouth will bottom out and new illegal tour guides and illegal stores will appear. The above situation will happen again, until the market equilibrium between illegal shopping groups and regular tour groups is formed.
Otherwise, the relevant management departments will not settle the matter easily and turn to strike hard, enforcing the law in strict accordance with the "Criminal Law". For those who use violence and threats to buy and sell goods, force others to provide services or force others to accept services, if the circumstances are serious, they will be punished with three sentences shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than 10 years or criminal detention, and shall also or solely be fined. I believe that few people would be so stubborn as to try the power of Iron Fist when they go out to make a living.
The operation of real society is far more complicated than most people imagine. For example, no one comes if the tour fee is too high, how to supervise market pricing, etc. And if a problem can be repeatedly suppressed, there are also vested interest groups behind it. Therefore, the current solution to the problem of shopping groups is to organize and organize them together. Until the market is completely clear, all we consumers can do is not to participate, or to advise surrounding relatives and friends not to participate in so-called low-priced tours - "The free ones are often the most expensive," and the same goes for low prices.
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