Tour agency probed in temple souvenir scam
By Yang Jian |
June 1, 2011, Wednesday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
BEIJING'S cultural heritage agency is investigating a tourism company after media reports claimed the company had taken the hall of a famous Ming Dynasty Buddha temple on rent to cheat tourists into buying expensive good-luck souvenirs.
The company has also been ordered to halt its business.
Some guides wearing the credentials of the Wanshou Temple (Temple of Longevity), a national heritage protection site, would persuade people from tour groups to pay up to 1,100 yuan (US$169.73) during their tour to the downtown temple, according to a state television report.
Visitors would be asked to pay 99 yuan at first to write their names on some red wooden plates being hung in the Longevity Hall of the temple. The tourists were told this would bring them good health and wealth, the report said.
The guides would then take visitors to a feng shui master who provided fortune-telling service to all those who wrote their names on the plates.
The service was free, but the master would warn visitors of bad luck in the near future unless they bought an "auspicious souvenir" priced at 399 yuan, 699 yuan and 999 yuan.
Temple staff told China Central Television that the Longevity Hall had been leased to a tourism company and what happened inside the hall had nothing to do with the temple.
However, the Beijing Art Museum, the temple operator, said it had never rented out the hall but was collaborating with a tourism company, to get some extra income to support its operation.
The museum signed an 11-year agreement with the Jinglong Tourism Co in 2005 for organizing visitors to the temple, Zhang Shuwei, director of the museum, told the Beijing Morning Post.
The cultural heritage administration has begun investigating the company and said it would publicize the result soon.
The temple was built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
The company has also been ordered to halt its business.
Some guides wearing the credentials of the Wanshou Temple (Temple of Longevity), a national heritage protection site, would persuade people from tour groups to pay up to 1,100 yuan (US$169.73) during their tour to the downtown temple, according to a state television report.
Visitors would be asked to pay 99 yuan at first to write their names on some red wooden plates being hung in the Longevity Hall of the temple. The tourists were told this would bring them good health and wealth, the report said.
The guides would then take visitors to a feng shui master who provided fortune-telling service to all those who wrote their names on the plates.
The service was free, but the master would warn visitors of bad luck in the near future unless they bought an "auspicious souvenir" priced at 399 yuan, 699 yuan and 999 yuan.
Temple staff told China Central Television that the Longevity Hall had been leased to a tourism company and what happened inside the hall had nothing to do with the temple.
However, the Beijing Art Museum, the temple operator, said it had never rented out the hall but was collaborating with a tourism company, to get some extra income to support its operation.
The museum signed an 11-year agreement with the Jinglong Tourism Co in 2005 for organizing visitors to the temple, Zhang Shuwei, director of the museum, told the Beijing Morning Post.
The cultural heritage administration has begun investigating the company and said it would publicize the result soon.
The temple was built in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
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