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As a community we all seem to agree that we can do without crude visitors and their revolting behavior, such as the mother who recently let her daughter use the floor of an MTR carriage as a public toilet - then "mopped up" with some tissues.
But let's get a few things into proper perspective about the tourist industry - most important, it is one of the bastions of our economy, and last year we hosted no fewer than 34.9 million mainland tourists who pumped a jaw-dropping $32.8 billion into our economy.
Second, many mainlanders definitely didn't enjoy their visits here, and would be highly unlikely ever to return. The people most likely to cause offense, they came here on super-cheap deals by which their trips and accommodation here cost virtually nothing - yes, yet another instance of an unbelievable bargain that's simply "too good to be true". Hardly had they arrived in Hong Kong than they found themselves being "controlled" by slimy Hong Kong travel agents whose bullying tactics were carried out with the connivance of equally tricky travel agents in the visitors' home towns, and the willing participation of the Hong Kong outlets where they were harangued into making expensive purchases.
Such tour groups are forced to spend most of their waking hours being trotted to an endless series of expensive jewelry outlets and other specialist shops, shopping malls, IT dealers, and high-fashion stores with display shelves aglow with glitzy items - most of them cheap knock-offs from over the border. The suckers are put under intense pressure to make purchase after purchase.
Over recent years some of the most disgraceful incidents of this "coerced shopping" have been splashed across the mainland's social media on the visitors' return to their home cities - Hong Kong tour guides berating and belittling mainlanders for not coughing up for expensive items, and threatening that if they didn't make purchases they would be charged for their fares and hotel accommodation.
The worst case concerned a 65-year-old former table tennis champion from Henan, Chen Youming, who left his wife inside a jewelry store and walked outside to read his newspaper. A highly insulting Hong Kong travel guide got into a heated argument with Mr Chen, who suffered a fatal heart attack.
This shameful incident was condemned by the Hong Kong Travel Industry Council, which tightened up regulations governing guides' conduct, but sadly the racket continued until Oct 1, when the mainland introduced a new tourism law that has finally brought the "gravy train" to a screeching halt, or so it seems.
With all mainland visitors now having to pay for their fares and hotel rooms, the cost of trips here has already doubled, and bookings have fallen away to a pathetic dribble. Predictably the shady travel agents are squealing that the situation is a catastrophe for them, and their business is ruined. No doubt all the stores that were profiting from the racket will be joining the chorus to bewail their drastically reduced turnover.
Meanwhile it seems safe to assume that in future, with the super-cheap segment of mainland visitors now eliminated from our streets, we'll be seeing far better-mannered visitors. As for all those agents and shopkeepers finally prevented from bullying such groups year after year, I can think of no more suitable expression than, "Serves you right!"
The author is Op-Ed editor of China Daily Hong Kong Edition. albertlin@chinadailyhk.com
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