There is civil strife in the travel agency industry, and the group grabs territory and jobs.

It is said that in June, the most complaints received by the Quality Supervision Office of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism were not tourists, but local agencies.

Many provinces and cities complain that some non-provincial tour groups "enter" the market in disorder, disrupting the normal market order. "Such complaints account for about 50% of the total complaints," said relevant sources.

In fact, as early as 2 1 the beginning of the century, the "trinity" pattern of wholesale, league organization and ground connection was broken, but now, due to the epidemic, this pattern is more fragmented.

Reward for "unorganized" behavior

For a long time, the business of traditional travel agencies in China has been divided into group tour and land agency. According to the provisions of Article 111 of the Tourism Law, package tour refers to the package tour contract concluded between travel agencies and tourists. A land agency refers to a travel agency that accepts the entrustment of a group agency and receives tourists at its destination. Especially for inter-provincial tourism products, after local travel agencies attract tourists and sign travel contracts with them, they will entrust tourists to tourist destination travel agencies to provide reception services.

But now, in order to get more profits, some travel agencies directly cooperate with motorcades, scenic spots, hotels and tour guides (collectively referred to as resource parties) in other provinces and cities, and hand over the attracted tourists to resource parties to provide reception services. Even if the means of transportation choose long-distance bus travel, the travel agency also brings its own tour guide to the tourist destination to explain; On the contrary, some land agencies sell tourism products online, and tourists directly place orders, sign contracts and pay through the internet platform, and arrive at their destinations to participate in tourism according to the traffic arranged by travel agencies.

"There are better ways to travel now. The team of WeChat business has tens of thousands of people's traffic, so they go directly to the destination official to talk about some resources. The organizer does not provide large-scale transportation, and the guests arrive in Xi 'an by themselves. There are more and more such things, which leads to confusion in the whole market. " Liang Pengfei, general manager of Xi Anxiang Travel Agency, said.

In addition, some tourists find their own travel agencies online, and do not register themselves through OTA or travel agencies.

Ms. Wang from Nanjing wants to visit the Forbidden City in Beijing, but she has never been able to book a ticket. Through a platform on the Internet, she saw the contents of a tour in a place in Beijing, "Three-day tour, including the Forbidden City, with a tour fee of 399 yuan/person". After Ms. Wang added the customer service WeChat, the customer service told Ms. Wang that the fee did not include the round-trip train ticket, and she paid the 99 yuan deposit in advance, leaving her contact information and train number. When she arrived in Beijing, someone met her at the station, signed the contract on the spot and handed over the rest of the 300 yuan. Ms. Wang paid the deposit in advance and provided the contact information and train number according to the customer service requirements.

After arriving in Beijing, the pick-up person of the travel agency asked Ms. Wang to sign a written travel contract on the spot, but the contract stipulated that the tickets for the Forbidden City were subject to whether the travel agency booked them or not, and five shopping stores were added during the trip. Ms. Wang refused to sign the written contract, and the travel agency told her that if she refused to sign, it would be regarded as Ms. Wang's breach of contract, and the deposit would not be refunded, and the round-trip fare would be borne by Ms. Wang herself. After careful consideration, Ms. Wang decided to sign the contract and pay the rest. During the actual performance, the travel agency informed the Forbidden City that tickets could not be booked, and other attractions needed to be changed, and the shopping time was extended. Finally, Ms. Wang complained to the travel agency, but how to compensate for the lost time and mood?

In this regard, Miao Huimin, a lawyer of Beijing Yihe Law Firm, believes that the reason is because "the map is cheap" and "the so-called de-intermediation actually removes the intermediary service guarantee and ultimately infringes on the rights and interests of consumers." She said.

From the perspective of industry development, group competition is more harmful.

The "integration" model has attracted attention.

20 10 outbound travel market encountered the event that overseas tour guides boycotted "one place and more tours". 20 10 the Chinese community in the United States launched the "first shot against' one place for all'". Since then, organizations in European countries such as Britain and Australia have also issued appeals to resist the act of "one place for all" disrupting the local tourism market. In 20 16, the AB2 138 Act of California stipulated that domestic tour guides must take tours with certificates from 2065438+0765438+1 October1,and all relevant employees and operators must register under California tourism management projects.

Now, the "all-in-one place" model has spread to China, causing concern in the industry.

"It is a phenomenon caused by low-priced shopping groups, from the earliest five cities in East China to the' all-in-one machine' and then to the Weihai market in Yantai, Shandong. Why is there no "one card" in Xi 'an? Maybe, but rarely, because Xi' an does not have a serious shopping market to support it, and it relies on the tour guide's explanation service to impress the guests, which also makes Xi' an market quite stable. " Peng-Liang Fei said.

However, the situation in Yunnan market, which has been plagued by shopping groups, is not optimistic. According to the relevant person of the Quality Supervision Institute, the cultural tourism department of Yunnan Province has recently received many complaints, saying that some tour groups from other provinces and cities have crossed the Yunnan land agency and conducted tourism activities in the Yunnan market, which once again caused the order of the Yunnan tourism market to be destroyed. Although Yunnan province stipulates that only Yunnan travel agencies can provide ground reception services, after the outbreak, there are still foreign tour groups directly leading tours, disrupting the market.

Can the group club directly provide ground connection service?

The Travel Agency Regulations and its implementing rules stipulate that if a travel agency needs to entrust the business of receiving tourists at a tourist destination, it should obtain the consent of the tourists. In other words, travel agencies decide whether to entrust local reception services to local reception agencies according to their own needs, and they do not have to entrust local reception agencies to provide reception services. At present, the existing tourism-related laws and regulations do not prohibit travel agencies from providing publicity, soliciting, signing contracts, collecting fees and providing reception services.

"In order to protect the legitimate rights and interests of local travel agencies and tourists and maintain the order of the local tourism market, some provinces and cities have formulated normative documents, stipulating that only locally registered travel agencies provide publicity, attract or provide ground reception services. However, there are no relevant restrictions in tourism-related laws and regulations. " Miao Huimin said.

Miao lawyer believes that although the law does not prohibit it, this behavior disrupts the order of the tourism market and infringes on the legitimate rights and interests of consumers. After all, the tour group doesn't know the situation of the destination, and its ability to control resources is poor, especially in the tourist season, the reception service can't be guaranteed, and the cost of dispute rights protection is high. It is suggested that travel agencies should strive for perfection, do their own characteristics well, and operate group agencies and land agencies separately to protect the legitimate rights and interests of consumers and themselves. All localities should also impose restrictions according to the actual situation of their respective administrative regions.

Will it become a trend?

"The continuous compression of the low-priced market has led some tour groups to take risks for cost and profit. When the tour group has traffic, it will directly talk to the destination about some resources. On the one hand, they will lower the price. On the other hand, some tour guides can support themselves without calling a travel agency. " Liang Pengfei believes that after the epidemic, this may become a trend when the market continues to compress.

Some land agencies also think this is "normal". "In fact, this is a good thing. Many people do it, indicating that the market is bigger, and then more money is invested, which is definitely more and more mature than before. Of course, the difficulties are real and inevitable. With more competition, enterprises will gradually do better. " A travel agency entrepreneur said. Although the entrepreneur used to be engaged in land acquisition business, he has now turned to "resource investment".

Wu Liyun, an associate professor at beijing international studies university China Cultural Tourism Industry Research Institute, disagrees with this view. She believes that the direct docking of tour groups with destination resources may lead to the lack of guarantee of tourists' service quality. In order to reduce profits, tour groups may find some unqualified suppliers to provide unprofessional services, which is equivalent to making illegal day trips "bigger and longer". At the same time, this mode of operation will also lead to the destination tourism administrative departments unable to obtain team information, disrupt the order of the tourism market, lead to illegal organizations supervised by the market authorities entering the market, and also have an impact on legitimate enterprises in terms of price.

"This is an act of exploiting loopholes. It is recommended that the administrative department fill the regulatory gap as soon as possible and return the legal compliance of the company's fair competition. " Wu Liyun stressed.

In fact, the market system built over the years is not unreasonable, especially when the entry-exit market is temporarily closed after the epidemic. Only the upstream and downstream * * * can really win * *, and taking advantage of the chaos will only make this market more and more chaotic, which is not good for anyone. (Pincheng Travel Lisa)