Chinese visitor numbers to Ha Long plummet as cheap tours face tighter controls
Chinese visitor numbers to Ha Long plummet as cheap tours face tighter controls
The number of Chinese tourists entering northern Vietnam’s Quang Ninh Province has plummeted following moves by local administrations to crack down on dirt cheap tours.
These so-called ‘zero-dollar tours,’ organized by Chinese travel agencies in partnership with local ones, spare their customers all costs other than their airfare, and make money on travelers expenses during their trip.
Tourists are taken en masse to affiliated shops - out of bounds to local shoppers - where they are widely ripped off in collusion with the tour operators themselves, who pocket the profits of the transactions, which are all made in Chinese yuan.
The destination of choice for most of these tours is Quang Ninh, which is accessible by road from China through the Mong Cai Border Gate, and is home to the UNESCO World Heritage Site Ha Long Bay.
Last month, the Quang Ninh administration began a campaign to rid local tourism of ‘undesirable activities,’ which included shutting down illegally run Chinese-only shops in the province.
Since then, the number of Chinese tourists visiting the northern Vietnamese province has dropped significantly, according to local businesses and travel agencies.
“The number of [Chinese] tourists entering by road has dropped by more than a half compared to this time last month, due largely to tightened control over tourism activities,” said H., a tour guide working at one travel agency in Quang Ninh’s Mong Cai City.
According to H., his company now receives only two to three groups of Chinese tourists per month compared to the previous five to six.
Local tour organizers have been forced to charge customers more for their trips in order to make up for the loss in commissions paid by the Chinese-only shops.
“We are informing our Chinese partners about the rise in tour prices as well as discussing future solutions,” leader of another local travel agency said, adding that non-shopping tours offered by his company are now selling at VND1-1.5 million (US$45-67) per customer.
According to Do Anh Tu, director of local tour organizer Manh Long, some Chinese agencies have already terminated their travel contracts after learning of the price increase.
“What needs to be created is an effective management policy to reassure the market and facilitate long-term development,” Tu said.
Meanwhile, head of another local tour organizer said the problem had its root in the fact that for a long time Vietnamese travel companies have sided with Chinese counterparts to introduce extremely low-price tours, creating an unfair trading environment.
He added that authorities were also to blame for the lack of control over the illegal tourism activities.
“Vietnam’s tourism industry needs to change to purify the market,” he said.
