HK to verify mainland tour groups
Print Edition
TRAVEL agencies in Hong Kong have been told they must provide contact details for all members of tour groups from the Chinese mainland, as local authorities seek to improve safety in the wake of the death of a tourist in the city last month.
One of the aims of the new monitoring system is to alert the authorities to anyone visiting the city “abnormally often,” said Cathy Chu, commissioner for tourism with the Commerce and Economic Development Bureau of Hong Kong.
Such people are known locally as “shadow tour group members,” and their aim is to encourage and cajole genuine tourists into parting with their money on shopping trips, Chu said at the 2015 China International Travel Mart today in Kunming, capital of southwest China’s Yunnan Province.
In the past, travel agencies were required only to provide the Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong with the name of the tour group and the number of visitors.
The tighter rules come after a man died after being badly beaten while trying to intervene in a dispute involving a tourist from China’s mainland and members of the tour’s organizers outside a jewelry store in Hong Kong.
A local travel guide and a tour escort from Shenzhen, south China’s Guangdong Province, have been charged in relation to the incident.
Chu said the authorities will also carry out more checks to identify “zero- or negative-fare tours,” which lure tourists with the offer of free or low-price trips only to coerce them into buying overpriced goods once at their destination.
Any irregularities found among travel agencies based in the Chinese mainland will be reported to the China National Tourism Administration, she said.
Tourist police and officials have also been told to be on the look out for tourists being bullied into making purchases, she said.
Meanwhile, Chu said that authorities in the city are currently in talks with the Walt Disney Co on the development plan of the second phase of the Hong Kong Disneyland.
Hong Kong’s tourism market has been stagnant in recent years, partly because more tourists from China’s mainland opt for destinations in South Korea and Japan. According to official figures, the number of visitors to the city over the National Day holiday period fell more than 8 percent from last year.
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