China’s crackdown on shady travel promoters and operators could cause the number of tour groups visiting Macau, which account for 40% of mainland visitation, to decline by 50% starting next month.
The projection was made by Max Lau, head of the Macau Travel Agency Association, who told the English-language Macau Daily Times that “Prices of tourist groups will increase according to the new law,” which takes effect 1st October. “Tourists will gradually find that what they paid in the past was not the real cost of the trip,” he said.
The law, which was decreed by the China National Tourism Administration, prohibits the country’s domestic travel agencies from “organizing tourism activities and luring tourists with unreasonably low prices, which is estimated to cause the previously under-market package rate to surge instantly”.
Among the practices specifically targeted are so-called “zero-fare” tours, which charge very low prices or promote themselves as free then divert their customers to affiliated retail shops where they’re pressured to buy goods on which tour agents and guides earn commissions, a ploy common in Hong Kong.
Accordingly, the law says agents cannot “designate specific shopping places, or provide tourism services that require additional payment”.
“Zero-fare” tours are believed to constitute only a small part of the group mix, so the ban is expected to affect mostly day-trippers at the low end of the market who use them as a way to get group visas to Macau.
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