Unlicensed taxi drivers double as tour guides, beautiful women in bars lure customers into overconsumption, "Dong批 goods" become a Lijiang feature, and alcohol prices soar fourfold. Lijiang's hospitality is no longer "gentle".
Following the exposure of price gouging in Sanya, many netizens began to summarize similar behaviors in various tourist destinations during the Spring Festival. In no time, "refuse to be gouged" became the hottest micro-topic. According to searches by reporters, apart from Sanya, names such as Yunnan and Lijiang frequently appeared on the "gouging list". Miss Wang, who just returned to Beijing from Lijiang, also told reporters about her personal experiences. Whether it was encountering unlicensed taxis and tour guides or being "ripped off" by beautiful women in ancient town bars, all these reflected the chaos in the local tourism market.
Tourist Exposure:
Disorderly Group Tour Prices, No Fish in the BBQ Package
"A set of barbecued fish with only four small potatoes costs 4 yuan, a small dumpling costs 1 yuan, locals pay 5 yuan for a ride while outsiders pay 8 yuan without a receipt, taxis don't use meters, two blocks cost 10 yuan... Compared to Sanya's gouging that often reaches thousands of yuan, Lijiang still has a long way to go." Sichuan netizen "ycldd", after comparing his personal experience with the gouging in Sanya, joked.
At the same time, some netizens listed major gouging spots in Lijiang to warn tourists. Reporters noticed that "Lashi Sea Chama Ancient Road Tour" became the first gouging spot pointed out by netizens: "There are at least four or five different priced routes on the wall, the most expensive ones cost six or seven hundred yuan per trip. It was later found out that the routes are actually the same, choosing one for more than a hundred yuan is enough."
In addition, the "barbecue fish shop in the middle of Lashi Sea" was also referred to by netizens as a gouging spot, the reason being: "Eating fish requires extra payment, 20 yuan per fish. Some people mistakenly thought it was included in the package and started eating..."
It seems that compared to Sanya's rampant gouging, Yunnan Lijiang's tourism market appears relatively calm, but is that really the case? Yesterday, Miss Wang, who just returned to Beijing from Lijiang, told reporters about her own experiences and revealed the traps of Lijiang tourism and three reasons not to visit Lijiang.
Reason One:
Driver Operates Without License, Travel Plans Delayed
Miss Wang's itinerary this Spring Festival was from Lijiang to Lugu Lake. After staying in Lijiang for two days, she found a local travel agency and signed up for the "two-day Lugu Lake tour". Since it was a small group, there were only five tourists plus a driver who also acted as a tour guide, and the entire trip cost 450 yuan per person.
When the car reached Ninglang County, the minibus Miss Wang was on was intercepted by local law enforcement for document checks, and it was discovered that the driver did not have a tourist vehicle operation license, making it an unlicensed vehicle.
Upon seeing this, Miss Wang immediately called the travel agency, which claimed they were unaware of the driver's lack of an operation license. Meanwhile, the driver repeatedly emphasized that he did have an operation license, just that he had lent it to someone else.
In the end, Miss Wang and her group were taken to the relevant department in Ninglang County to wait for another legally operated vehicle to take them to Lugu Lake to complete their journey.
As a result, the day's trip was completely delayed. Moreover, Miss Wang found out that the travel agency's charging standards were not uniform. Among the fellow tourists, some paid 450 yuan, while others paid 500 yuan. The travel agency's practices made several fellow tourists very angry.
Reason Two:
Bars "Fake Encounters", Fourfold Price Gouging
Besides common "black tour guides", dining absolutely ranks among the easiest ways to get gouged in Yunnan. In Lijiang's two famous ancient towns - Dayan Ancient Town and Shuhe Ancient Town, the ubiquitous bars are what netizens commonly refer to as "gouging paradises".
Miss Wang told reporters that one of her fellow backpackers was unfortunately gouged. According to the backpacker's description, that night he ordered a cocktail commonly seen in Beijing bars in a certain bar in Dayan Ancient Town, but unexpectedly, the price was four times that of Beijing bars. What costs 20 yuan per cup in Beijing costs 80 yuan per cup there.
As soon as the backpacker sat down, the server aggressively promoted various wines and asked if he wanted to order songs. While talking, the server handed over several song-ordering sheets.
The backpacker, feeling unable to refuse, ordered four songs, only to find out when settling the bill that ordering songs was charged, 30 yuan per song, totaling 120 yuan for four songs. "You didn't say it would be charged beforehand," the backpacker instantly felt deceived.
Moreover, the backpacker encountered a wine-touting scheme. In the bar, these touts pretended to be single women seeking encounters, luring young men into paying bills. In the end, this backpacker was gouged nearly 500 yuan in alcohol expenses without getting any "beauty" in return.
Miss Wang said that according to locals, these "encounter girls" were mostly employed by bar owners as wine touts. They would choose higher-priced wines to make customers pay, and those first-time visitors to Lijiang, who came with the purpose of finding encounters, ended up being gouged. "Finding encounters" ultimately turned into "being encountered".
Reason Three:
"Dong批 Goods" Sold in Lijiang at Double the Price
As the tourism market becomes increasingly commercialized, the originally culturally renowned Lijiang ancient towns have gradually become a good place for small vendors to make money, and tourists getting gouged has become commonplace.
According to multiple tourists who visited Lijiang during the Spring Festival, in Dayan Ancient Town, so-called Lijiang local products and special crafts, like embroidered skirts, linen pants, and other ethnic-style clothing and goods, are actually no different from those sold near Beijing's zoo.
And many merchants in the ancient town admitted that they were not locals, but just here to do business. A fellow tourist told Miss Wang that in a store selling ethnic-style long skirts, almost all styles could be found exactly the same in Beijing. The shopkeeper also admitted that these "Lijiang special goods" were not locally produced, but imported from Beijing or Guangzhou.
Moreover, most of these goods' prices were more than twice as high as in Beijing and Guangzhou. This made many tourists returning from Lijiang to Beijing feel surprised, as they never expected to see "Dong批 goods" everywhere in Lijiang.
Travel Agencies:
Scenic Spots Far Apart, Black Taxis and Guides Rampant
Subsequently, reporters learned from China Youth Travel Service, China National Travel Service General Corporation, China Travel Service General Corporation, and other places that there are some illegal operators "gouging" tourists in various domestic scenic spots, and this phenomenon occurs more frequently in popular destinations during the tourism peak season. As a major domestic tourist hotspot, Yunnan Lijiang's "gouging" phenomena naturally come in various forms.
Any tourist who has been to Yunnan knows that whether it is a large tourist destination like Lijiang, Kunming, Tengchong, or smaller tourist destinations like Jade Dragon Snow Mountain, Shangri-La, the distances between various scenic spots are all quite far, and transportation is inconvenient. There are no perfect transportation facilities locally, which forces independent travelers to choose chartered vehicles or local one-day tour products.
"In such a situation, tourists are definitely at a disadvantage," a relevant person in charge of China Youth Travel Service Domestic Company told reporters. If tourists do not choose chartered vehicles, they have no other options, thus encouraging some black cars and unlicensed one-day tour guides to operate illegally, even going out of their way to other scenic spots or taking tourists to illegally operated stores for shopping to earn more money.
Ethnic Style Becomes Feature, Genuine and Fake Goods Mixed
Compared with some tourist destinations in the eastern plains of China, one big feature of Yunnan tourism is its local ethnic minority风情, which has attracted numerous tourists. However, in recent years, local ethnic-style tourism goods have become increasingly outrageous, with genuine and fake goods mixed together.
"If I ask you to bring me some souvenirs from Jiangnan, wouldn't you think about what special commodities are available there? But if I ask you to bring something back from Lijiang, you can immediately think of local specialties like yak beef jerky, Tibetan silver jewelry, etc.," a relevant person in charge of China Travel Service General Corporation told reporters. It is precisely this "distinctive" tourist destination that attracts a considerable number of tourists, and products with such "distinctiveness" are very popular among tourists.
"You may see products in Anhui that are also sold in Hangzhou, or even in Beijing, which naturally wouldn't arouse your interest in shopping." When the demand side increases, merchants naturally try every possible means to make profits, so problems such as counterfeit goods and mismatched prices appear.
Tourism Bureau:
Yunnan Will Take Three Major Measures to Rectify Tourism Market
The official website of Yunnan Tourism Bureau recently posted an announcement showing that during the 2012 Spring Festival Golden Week, Yunnan Province received a total of 7.443 million tourists, an increase of 18.9% year-on-year. Among them, overnight tourists amounted to 1.683 million, an increase of 29.4% year-on-year; day-trip tourists reached nearly 5.76 million, an increase of 16.1% year-on-year.
Meanwhile, the People's Network Tourism 3・15 Complaint Platform also released the January 2012 tourism complaint rankings, with Yunnan Province topping the list with 13 valid complaints accounting for more than half of the national total complaints.
Although this news caused some doubts about its authority and fairness within the industry, it certainly reflects the disorder in Yunnan's tourism market to a certain extent, ultimately drawing the high attention of Yunnan's Tourism Bureau.
Yang Cheng, captain of the Yunnan Tourism Bureau Enforcement Team, said that regarding previous complaints of tour guide fraud, the Provincial Tourism Bureau, after investigating clearly, has already ordered the relevant merchants to refund the excessive amounts. Among the tourist complaints, some small restaurants and guesthouses have gradually become hotspots for complaints. Yang Cheng indicated that enterprises that have not participated in tourism level evaluations are not within the management jurisdiction of the Tourism Bureau, and need to be standardized and managed by the local industrial and commercial departments.
In addition, reporters learned from the Yunnan Tourism Bureau that this year, Yunnan will focus on rectifying three major issues in the tourism market: rectifying the zero-negative group fee operating behavior of travel agencies; governing the behavior of travel agencies transferring, renting, or lending their business licenses through contracting or affiliation; and governing the behavior of forcing or covertly forcing tourists to consume.
At the same time, Yunnan will innovate regulatory methods and develop and construct the Yunnan Tourism Industry Dynamic Supervision Platform. Through functional module constructions such as electronic operation schedules, tourism electronic contracts, and team dynamic data collection, it will pilot electronic management of all receiving teams and organizing teams of travel agencies throughout the province, achieving real-time monitoring of the operation tracks of tourism teams by tourism administrative management departments and tourism enterprises.
This article/ reporter Wang Sisi, Wang Lingling, illustration by Li Ming