Recently, I traveled to Hainan Island with a group. The warm sunshine and long-lost blue sky and white clouds in Hainan Island are rare for northerners who have come out of the smog. After the country made great efforts to clean up illegal tour guides, there was no forced shopping. However, the contradiction between tourists' pursuit of comfort and tourism companies' pursuit of maximum benefits remains unchanged, which makes the original spiritual journey become a contest between tourists and tour guides' interests and psychology, and also makes the hasty tour less fun.
Tourism should not be like this.
Save room and board if you can.
If you join a group, food and accommodation will certainly not be much better, but it is expected that it will be worse to a certain extent. The food is mainly vegetarian, and all kinds of vegetables are fried with vegetarian dishes. One or two meat dishes on a table are all burnt incense. Especially for dinner, steamed bread porridge with pickles, there will be a boiled egg in the best case. I can't bear to eat worse. The key is the bad dining environment. The canteen is a big canteen with dozens of worn-out tables and chairs, which reminds people of the school canteen. The restaurant doesn't even provide napkins, so you have to pay for them. I really doubt whether the tableware used, especially the bowls, is the waste directly pulled back by the kiln factory. It's normal to have a gap. It can't be white, but it's all cement. Bowls are mostly round, mostly oval, with various black spots left by uneven temperature during kiln burning, or bulging, or various black spots burned by raw material residues. In short, it is estimated that this kind of bowl will not be sold in the market, and the poorest families will not use this kind of bowl. Let's just say beggars can't use it. No one will cherish such tableware, even dishwashers will not take them seriously, and then they will not take people who eat with such tableware seriously. Several dirty plastic pots on the dining room floor are evidence. They are used to clean these dishes. I washed it with water, maybe it was a misnomer.
Accommodation, of course, will not be much better. Wet and dirty. Under the white sheets, there must be worn and dirty bedding. You must try your luck with hot water. Television is a picture tube product in the 1980s. The picture is covered with snowflakes, which makes people feel that time has gone back. Such products have only collection value, but no use value.
I think such a hotel should be tailor-made only for those travelers who are destined to stay only once in their lives. Anyway, it's all a one-time deal. Of course, it is also possible to save money for the benefit maximization. As for the tourists' feelings, they don't care.
As a tour guide to the master of deception
Videos of online tour guides forcing shopping, swearing and hitting people frequently appear, which makes the reputation of tour guides plummet. There may be guides who serve the people wholeheartedly, but I have never met them. At least all the tour guides I have seen are mainly to fool tourists into shopping, which can be said to be doing everything possible.
Along the way, the tour guide tried to introduce some projects that require tourists to pay their own expenses. For example, in Xinglong, tour guides always recommend tourists to see a shemale performance, saying that it is more authentic than Thailand, of course, at their own expense. In Sanya, the tour guide also fooled cruise ships to visit Sanya Bay at night, seafood dinner and other self-funded projects. However, if the number of applicants is less than 10, and he cancels these self-funded projects for reasons such as not stopping by, it is nothing more than consuming gas money and parking fees, and the profits obtained are not much, which makes them uninterested.
After many times of fooling, when the effect was not good, the tour guide took out various methods such as telling common sense of economics, telling Buddhism, grandstanding and so on to continue to fool everyone into spending money. It makes sense to say that spending money. I hope everyone has love when talking about Buddhism, and so on. Finally, a few people were soft-hearted and made up a self-funded project such as a seafood dinner.
The ultimate goal must be money.
Not only the accompanying tour guides are good at bluffing, but also the local tour guides. They usually talk about culture and health first, but the ultimate goal will definitely be to make you spend money.
In a temple, the local tour guide showed everyone around and explained the history of the temple and the profoundness of Buddhism (I can't imagine how deeply young people in their twenties understand Buddhism). Sure enough, at some point, I talked about a living Buddha relic in the temple, how effective it is to worship Buddha, and then I talked about the miraculous thing that one person can come true after worshipping. The back is to take tourists to a secret room, so that tourists can ask for incense. Of course, they are all expensive. The cheapest one seems to be 99 yuan.
In a botanical garden, the tour guide showed the tourists around some plants, and finally took them to the classroom. A staff member introduced the benefits of essential oil. Out of this classroom, you can't go outside directly. You must go through a shopping center selling all kinds of essential oils. You have to turn around and walk past all the counters to get out.
In a newly-built Miao ancient village, the local tour guide first took the tourists to watch the making process of Miao silver ornaments, and then took them to a so-called Miao grandmother's house to be guests, drinking unknown Miao ancient tea and listening to Miao customs. Speaking of the magical functions of Miao silverware, such as detoxification, beauty and physical fitness, it has been used for tourists for a long time. I'm thinking about how tourism has become a health pavilion, and the time for sitting guests has finally ended. The Miao family really has to go through a silver shop. Looking for Sney is still to let tourists keep the money.
Enclosure movement in tourist areas
Whether the natural landscape should be enjoyed by all citizens for free, or whether local governments should circle up and sell tickets to make money, the latter will of course be chosen from the perspective of local interests. This will lead to a slightly decent landscape, and local governments will have the impulse to circle it and sell tickets. Of course, there will also be some legends and cultures.
Maybe there is no comprehensive investigation. Of the three seaside places in Sanya, two have to buy tickets to enter. Among them, a 108-meter-high Guanyin statue was built at the seaside of Nanshan, which endowed it with certain cultural connotation, while Tianya Haijiao is only a natural landscape, and both places have to buy tickets to enter. Third, Yalong Bay is an open bay, but there is not much room left for people. There are only two basketball court-sized places on the coast for people to go into the water, and it is basically impossible to swim. The rest is reserved for recreational projects such as motorboats, where people are not allowed to go to sea. A cruise terminal has been built in the sea, which is a good place for sightseeing. Cruise tickets don't cost 120 yuan, but tour tickets cost 10 yuan, otherwise you can't enter the dock. In addition, there are more expensive diving projects. In short, you can only walk on the shore without spending money.
Investigating three terrains, I seriously doubt that Yalong Bay is a kind of helplessness without tickets. The beaches in Sanya are different from those in the north. Most of the beaches in the north extend from land to sea, and the coast is flat. If you want to enclose the whole beach to sell tickets, the cost of enclosing it is too high. Sanya is a beach near the island, with mountains not far from the sea. Although it is not high, it is also difficult to climb over. Nanshan and Tianya Haijiao have a road to the seaside when both sides are mountains. Without this road, it will be difficult for anyone who wants to go to the seaside. This road provides an excellent geographical advantage for selling tickets. However, Yalong Bay is relatively flat, and it is impossible to block tickets at low prices. It should be a helpless move to become an open beach.
Pseudo-folk customs prevail.
When traveling, especially to some ethnic minority areas, most people will go to places like ancient villages. In fact, these ancient villages are not ancient at all. Most of them are newly-built buildings, and the ethnic minority brothers and sisters inside are not the aborigines there, but some migrant workers who go to work and get paid. It is doubtful whether some of them are local minorities.
Take an ancient Miao village as an example. In a large number of reinforced concrete buildings, you can't see any national style except some national symbols above. Several Miao adobe houses are also temporarily built, and it is basically impossible to live in them for a long time. The Miao grandmother in it may be true, because young people now will not do the brocade work done by these grandmothers. Of course, grandma's tapestry is more of a performance. Young girls touch their ears at the intersection to propose a toast, which is a pure performance without any impurities. At this time, most photographers in the park will take pictures and sell them to you at a price far higher than the market price 10 yuan 20 yuan.
In this ancient Miao village, it is rare to see the old woman performing brocade on the roadside sewing national costumes for Miao girls who dance national dances, because this is the only scene I have ever seen without performance color.
Travel time is always tight and shopping time is always abundant.
Traveling with a group and shopping are inevitable. In addition to being fooled by the local escort of the scenic spot, you have to be accompanied into the shopping store for special shopping. In the past three days, there have been as many as six shopping places. The key is that the tour guide always shortens the tour time to the shortest, and every scenic spot is a cursory tour, but he does not hesitate to spend a lot of time shopping. For example, in Sanya, I visited four scenic spots a day, and each scenic spot hurried by. It was already six o'clock in the evening when I reached the ends of the earth. The next day could have been easy, but it had to be compressed into one day. As a result, there was only one scenic spot to turn around the next day and then I came back. I didn't expect to visit three large supermarkets, jewelry, specialties and fruits on my return trip. For tourists who just want to see the scenery, time is wasted.
impression
First of all, I haven't traveled with a group for a long time. I feel that there is no change at all compared with a few years ago. Still the worst accommodation, the fastest trip and the most shopping links. With the improvement of people's income level, tourism is no longer a luxury, and going out to travel is no longer the shortest time and the most scenic spots, but as comfortable and leisure as possible. This kind of sheep-herding tour is obviously not suitable for most people, especially young people. This is why there are more and more self-help tours and go on road trip.
Secondly, the chaos in the tourism market lies not only in poor supervision, but also in the lack of brands. Travel companies are little-known small companies. They never attach importance to brand management based on the idea of making a ticket and leaving. People don't know how to choose a travel company. Anyway, they are all small companies without brands, so choose the cheapest one. Tourism companies are competing to lower prices, and only by lowering the service level can they recover their losses. In such a vicious circle, travel companies that want to improve their service level can't raise prices, so they have to transfer the market to many small companies with low prices and poor quality. When you come back from your trip, you may say that the service of the travel company is good, but will you remember which travel company it is? No, if there is a brand travel company, and everyone recognizes its services, they will choose more brand companies to serve themselves. In order to maintain their own brands, brand companies usually do not lower their service level. Tourists who accept the services of brand travel companies will also advertise for them free of charge by word of mouth, so that more people can choose brand travel companies. Only in this way can we form a virtuous circle and achieve a win-win situation.
Third, can I go shopping while traveling? Of course, not many people go shopping in Hong Kong. Then why are there so many criticisms about travel shopping? The main reason is the suspicion caused by information asymmetry. The guide will take you to the shopping store. You don't know the brand of the store, the brand of the goods you buy, the price is opaque, and you don't even know the authenticity of the goods. Everything was told by the shopping guide. They show various certificates to prove that they are true. When the tourism market is just emerging, these innocent people can be deceived. At that time, people would not believe that someone would tell lies with their eyes open. People all think that people should be nervous when lying and should be seen. But after being cheated for so many years, even the stupid people become smart. People who travel abroad have not been cheated several times in shopping. With word of mouth and the spread of the internet, people's vigilance has long been improved. No matter how grandiose you say, I won't move, which is ok. There are so many shopping channels now, why should I risk being cheated to go shopping in the tourist area?
Why is Hong Kong a shopping paradise? Why do people who travel abroad bring back a bunch of domestic products? The reason is that the information is at least transparent, the shopping stores have brand guarantees, and the products they buy are mostly famous brands, and the prices are relatively clear. These are guaranteed, and you can rest assured when you buy them.
Ps: Maybe it's just a hammer with little money, so all I see on a trip is nails.