Video of a Hong Kong tourist guide berating a group of mainland tourists on a bus because they spent too little on shopping has been shown widely on televisions in Shanghai and other cities. That incident understandably has touched off a storm of public protest that threatens to ruin the image of Hong Kong as a favored tourist destination to millions of mainlanders.
To contain the damage, the Hong Kong government said it has given the Travel Industry Council (TIC) three months to come up with "concrete" measures to improve the image of Hong Kong. In what has been widely mocked as an outrageous understatement, Tourism Commissioner Philip Yung lamented that there have been a series of "quite" serious incidents, which "may" affect the reputation of Hong Kong as a tourist destination.
"The TIC has set up a taskforce to look at the longer term improvement measures," Yung said. "I'm sure, with the support of the travel trade and with the hard work of the TIC and the support of the government, there should be visible improvement with the implementation of these measures," he added.
We are not so sure.
Hong Kong's tourism industry is singularly inept in policing itself, and past records have shown that the TIC was laughably ineffectual in enforcing the measures it introduced.
Forced shopping has been a known disease of the Hong Kong tourism industry since the relaxation of visa requirement for mainland tourists years ago. The symptoms came into the open in mid 2007 when 50 mainland tourists complained to the TIC that they were deserted by their tour guides for refusing to shop as directed.
In response, the TIC introduced in June that year a new rule requiring travel agents to provide mainland tourists with detailed itineraries and, more important, a written pledge that they would not be forced to shop. What's more, travel agents were required to "register" their itineraries with the TIC. The rule stipulated that failure of compliance would be subject to a fine of between HK$50,000 to HK$200,000.
Introducing the rule, the then TIC executive director, Joseph Tung, emphasized the need to let visitors to Hong Kong know what to expect from their trips and that the duty of the tour guides was to ensure "tourists enjoy the fun of shopping in Hong Kong." The rule, when introduced, appeared to have received the support of the industry. It was praised by the then vice-chairman of the Hong Kong Association of Travel Agents, Paul Leung, as "a good move" for the protection of what he called "travelers' rights."
But that "good move" has apparently produced poor results. Although the practice of forced shopping has remained widespread, no travel agent is known to have been chastised. In the latest case, the TIC hasn't been seen to have invoked the rule to punish the travel agent involved, other than seeking to revoke the license of the offensive tour guide.
Commissioner Yung should know that the reputation of Hong Kong as a tourist destination has already been seriously damaged by that video showing the rude and mean behavior of the tour guide on the bus. Maybe he should be as skeptical as we are about the possible results of the "hard work" of the TIC.
Tourism is an important income earner for Hong Kong. It's time for the Commissioner and his colleagues to earn their keep.
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