Feature: Chinese tour groups still targeted in Australian gift store kickbacks

Kickbacks to Australian tour guides are still continuing despite a raft of measures by local authorities to counter the practice, causing Chinese tourists to pay up to three times more than the average cost of some goods.

Though Australia's tourism marketing has been focusing on the independent traveller, particularly from China's emerging middle class, inbound tour groups still account for over one-third of the more than 1 million Chinese visitors who arrived on Australia's shores in 2015.

Australia was granted "Approved Destination Status" (ADS) in 1999, allowing guided Chinese tour groups to travel to the "land down under." What followed was wide spread rip-offs by Australian operators and tour guides on the visitor, causing Australian authorities in January 2015 to force all in-bound tour guides who operate under the ADS scheme to comply with a code of business standards and ethics.

"Under the code, tourists must be informed where shops are operating commission shopping arrangements, and they must be taken to competitive non-commissioned shops for equal shopping time," an Austrade spokesperson told Xinhua in a statement.

"All tour guides and inbound tour operators are required under the Code to keep records of all commissions received and to provide those records to Austrade upon request."

Austrade is the Australian agency responsible for ADS compliance.

A Xinhua investigation, however, has found some Australian travel agencies focusing on serving Chinese tourists are violating the code of conduct.

The investigation found some locally based Australian souvenir businesses in Sydney, Melbourne and the Gold Coast have entered into arrangements agreeing only to sell products to the tour groups, giving a kickback to the tour guide.

"Some tour guides will tell this group's spending power before they arrive in the shop, the store's staff will use different marketing strategy, and they will change the price tag," a former staff member of Sydney International Duty Free store located near Star Casino in Pyrmont, told Xinhua. The staff member declined to be publicly identified.

Tourists interviewed have also told Xinhua that the tour guides have prevented them visiting other stores to compare prices, either by staying at locations away from shopping districts or not facilitating shopping at non-commissioned stores, a direct contravention of the ethical code.

"Some tour guides defame (Sydney's) China Town," store owner Xu Yaolin told Xinhua.

"(Tour guides) call that area's security bad and the store's price high.

"We suffer a lot of negative affects, some stores collapsed in the recent three years."

Sydney's China town has more than 10 gift and souvenir stores within a short distance of each other, allowing Chinese tourists to easily compare prices.

Australian authorities stress, however, offenders are being caught through the use of a compliance-monitoring agency.

"These activities include random checks on ADS tours, conducting mystery shopper operations, and regular visits to operators to ensure compliance with the Code," an Austrade spokesperson said, but did not provide further details.

Under the code, those sanctioned incur demerit points and if 10 accumulate within a 12-month period, the ADS approval is suspended. Repeat offenders will have their approval cancelled.

The largest difficulty however is complaints on unscrupulous tour guides ending up being filed with the tour operator themselves, rather than local Australian authorities. That's despite the code of conduct mandating all ADS itineraries in both English and Chinese include comprehensive information on consumer rights, where to make complaints and details for interpreter services.

"If I find the price is a little bit high, I will bear it, because I do not want this to make trouble for me and I do not know where I can complain in Australia," Liu, retired two years ago but declined to give her full name, told Xinhua.

"However, if the price is too much more expensive, I only can complain when I'm back in China."

China is Australia's most lucrative tourism market with expenditure up 45 percent to 8.3 billion Australian dollars (6.11 billion U.S. dollars) in the year to December 2015.

It seems that Australia should do more to protect Chinese tourists' interests. But the Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC), the local peak body representing Australia's tourism export industry, would not respond to Xinhua's repeated requests for comment. Endit