What's behind the big tourism case in Yunnan?

Article 35 of China's Tourism Law stipulates that travel agencies shall not cheat tourists by organizing tourism activities at unreasonably low prices, and obtain illegitimate interests such as kickbacks by arranging shopping or paying for other tourism projects. In fact, the trap of low-priced groups is not uncommon.

Not long ago, the police in Kunming, Yunnan, cracked a major case involving the key link of the "black interest chain" of "low-priced group" tourism. Next, through this case, we will uncover the secret of the low-priced group.

At the end of May this year, Kunming police got a clue that a travel agency was suspected of illegal and criminal acts because of unreasonable low-cost travel. After preliminary investigation and analysis, on June 8, the public security department took unified action to arrest the relevant personnel of travel agencies and shopping stores in Kunming, Dali and Xishuangbanna.

Police: Don't move, police. Put your mobile phone on the table. Do not move. According to relevant laws and regulations, we will search the company according to law. Please cooperate with other people. This is our search warrant. You got it?

At present, 3 1 person has been arrested in this case, and 6 of them are tour guides with a large amount involved. The reporter interviewed two tour guides involved in the case, who introduced in detail the financial exchanges between the travel agency and the tour guides during the tour. It is understood that in daily travel, travel agencies often need tour guides to pay in advance, and this part of the prepaid expenses is generally reimbursed by the travel agency within 15 to 20 days after the end of the tour. Travel agencies will not pay fixed salaries to tour guides, nor will they buy necessary social security. The personal income of tour guides is closely related to the shopping situation of tourists.

Tour guide Wang involved: The default rule in our industry is that the tour guide's income is 10% of the team's shopping amount, which is what we call 10.

The reporter obtained the income details of a tour guide from the accounts of Kunming Qian Yue Travel Agency. According to this list, the tour guide takes tours 49 times a year and earns more than 600,000 yuan.

Reporter: Some groups can earn more than 20,000 yuan. I think it's still negative. What do you mean by negative?

Liu, a staff member of Kunming Travel Agency: A negative number means that there is a refund, that is to say, the group he brought has a refund, and the guests have returned. We have to return the money to the shopping store, so his commission will also be deducted. But most of them still have income, ranging from more than 10 thousand to several hundred yuan, so their income is not stable. But this year it seems that the total income is around 600,000.

Reporter: This kind of calculation ability is strong, and it earns a lot. Is it still relatively common?

Liu, a staff member of Kunming Travel Agency: This is a lot of money.

A tour guide can earn more than 600,000 yuan a year through shopping by tourists, which is only one tenth of the amount of shopping by tourists. Then, how much income can a travel agency that arranges a tour guide to take a group get from tourists' shopping? What is the real value of the goods that tourists buy in tourist shops?

There are four key links in the operation mode of low-cost tour groups. The top layer is called tour group travel agency, which is responsible for promoting tourism products in tourists' places of residence and attracting tourists to sign up for tourism with products that are obviously lower than the market price. After that, the group society will hand over these tourists to the local travel agency of the tourist destination, which will be responsible for the specific itinerary. Ground-based travel agencies need to bear most of the cost of tourists' travel. When designing tourists' itineraries, they arrange multiple shopping stores for tourist goods, guide tourists into the stores for consumption through tour guides, and then collect kickbacks from the shopping stores to make up for tourists' travel costs and gain their own profits. The main income of Kunming Qian Yue Travel Agency involved in this case was obtained through this mode.

Zhang, a staff member of Kunming Travel Agency: About 70% of the main income is the return income from shopping stores, and then some is the normal tour fee income, and some is the self-funded items and other income of tourists.

On the single group bill of a tour group of Kunming Travel Agency, the reporter saw that a zero-yuan group that didn't pay a penny of tour fees eventually brought more than 360,000 yuan in profits to the travel agency.

Reporter: There is no group money here. What does this mean?

Liu, a staff member of Kunming Travel Agency: The unit price is zero, which means the group is zero.

Reporter: Looking down, what does shopping refund mean?

Liu, a staff member of Kunming Travel Agency: Shopping refund is the money returned to us by the guests after the tour group enters the shopping store.

Reporter: So this group entered two stores and bought 576,700 yuan.

Staff of Kunming Travel Agency Liu: Yes.

Reporter: He gave us 493,097 yuan.

Staff of Kunming Travel Agency Liu: Yes.

Tourists spend more than 570,000 in shopping stores, of which more than 490,000 have returned to the pockets of travel agencies, and the refund rate is as high as 85%. In fact, in the operation mode of "low-cost group", the refund ratio of different categories of goods is also very different.

Zhang Tingsheng, a policeman of the Economic Investigation Brigade of Xishan Public Security Bureau of Kunming Public Security Bureau: (Take this case as an example) If you buy 10,000 pieces of jade, it (the shopping store involved) will return 8,000 to 9,000 yuan to the land agency, which means that even if this jade is sold to you at a 10% or 20% discount, you can still make money.

Reporter: That is to say, the price has risen at least tenfold.

Zhang Tingsheng, policeman of Economic Investigation Brigade of Xishan Public Security Bureau of Kunming Public Security Bureau: Yes, the value has increased tenfold.

During the investigation, the police found that dozens of shopping shops had improper capital transactions with Kunming Qian Yue Travel Agency, and 8 of them had large capital transactions, which have been verified. Moreover, in order to avoid inspection and tax evasion, financial transactions between these shopping stores and travel agencies are often conducted through personal accounts.

Yuan Heng, Deputy Director of Xishan Public Security Bureau of Kunming Public Security Bureau: Shoppers are very cunning. They often use 30 or 40 bank cards to pay money to Mao Moumou (legal person of Kunming Qian Yue Travel Agency).

During the investigation of the case, the public security police seized a large number of accounts and documents of Qian Yue Travel Agency. From these evidences, the police found that from 20 17 10 to May this year, Kunming Qian Yue Travel Agency made huge profits of more than RMB10 million from various shopping stores in the past year and a half.