Travel lawyer tip: what should the tour guide do if he changes his itinerary?

Legal advice for tour guides to change their itinerary without authorization.

Mr. Wu signed up for the "Guangzhou Panyu Style Day Tour" organized by a travel agency in Qingyuan. After paying the tour fee, he signed the contract. During the trip, due to the weather, the tour guide cancelled one of the scenic spots after obtaining the consent of the whole group of tourists. At the same time, without the consent of all the tourists, the tour guide temporarily changed two shopping spots, which led Mr. Wu to think that the tour guide changed the itinerary privately and added more shopping spots, which led to complaints. During the trip, due to the conflict with the ground agency, it is impossible to arrange the tour activities according to the original itinerary. Without knowing that the tour guide would organize tourists, he temporarily adjusted two shopping spots, which led Mr. Wu to think that two more shopping spots were added. Later, due to the weather, the tour guide canceled a scenic spot after asking for the consent of most tourists in the group. Mr. Wu asked the travel agency to refund the tour fee and complained that the tour guide changed the itinerary without authorization, which infringed on the legitimate rights and interests of tourists.

After coordination, the travel agency refunded Mr. Wu's tour fare and apologized. The tourism quality supervision and management department shall impose an administrative penalty on the tour guide for changing the itinerary without authorization, and impose a fine of 1 000 yuan.

Lawyer's tip:

This case does not provide information on whether the sales price of this line product conforms to the first paragraph of Article 35 of the Tourism Law. Since the focus of this case is whether it violates the second paragraph of Article 35, we will not analyze the selling price for the time being.

There is no information in this case to show that the travel agency fully respected the tourists' right of independent choice in the arrangement of the original shopping spots, which violated the provisions of Article 9 (tourists' right of independent choice) and Paragraph 2 of Article 35 of the Tourism Law. The travel agency arbitrarily changed two shopping spots during the trip, which violated the second paragraph of Article 4 1 of the Tourism Law. This is an unauthorized itinerary change. According to the provisions of article 100 of the Tourism Law, tour guides can be fined between 20,000 and 20,000. Therefore, the above penalties for tour guides are appropriate. In addition, travel agencies should also refund the reduced scenic spot fees to tourists according to the provisions of Item (2) of Article 67 of the Tourism Law.