I am sorry. I am a Christian. I can not burn incense in Taoist temple
If you travel around in China, you will discover that a lot of travel agents offer very low price for their tours. The price is so low that you may wonder if they will loss money on such tours.
For example, a day trip to the Stone Forest from Kunming will normally cost around 150RMB which includes the entrance ticket for the Stone Forest, 80 RMB tickets, the transportation back and forth, 50RMB, the lunch, 10 RMB and the tour guide, 10RMB. Some travel agencies dare to quote for only 80 RMB for all the services listed above. It looks like the travel agent is going broke soon. But are they?
Of cause not. There is no free lunch in this world. Travel agencies will try to squeeze money to at least breakeven from the tourists. For example, they will take the tourist too many shopping stops. To be exact, 5 of them in a day and 30 minutes each. That is 2 hours in total. The time that a tourist should spend in visiting places but have to spend in shopping alleys where all the prices are significantly inflated.
The travel agent gets 10 RMB for each visitor they bring to the shops. On top of that, the agency gets 30% or more on all the purchases tourists made in the shops. The shops usually sell things like jade, jewelry, specialty tea, fish oil and other health products. These products have no market value and the margin is extremely high. There is a shop in Yunnan called “Colorful Yunnan.” At first glance, that is a scenic spot. But in reality, it is the largest in Yunnan shop for tourist, specific for foreigners.
Cut a long story short, I have been back to China for a few years and I have been to many places. I went to Xi’an, recently. I took a taxi from the Xi