PLANNING to go overseas for a holiday? There are two options you can choose from: either go on your own or join a tour group.
Going solo is quite popular, especially with the younger generation or the jet set. They can do all the preparations and arrangements online like booking their hotel at leisure. Best of all, they can take their own sweet time to visit any tourist spots including those off-the-beaten track.
For the elderly people, joining a tour group is an ideal choice because it is safer and more convenient. They can chat up with old or new friends, and more importantly, they can help one another in times of emergency. Most of the work like booking your flights and hotels are done by the tour guide.
Nevertheless, it can be quite of a hassle. From the moment the aeroplane lands, the tour starts. The tour members will be bundled off in a bus and driven straightaway to the first designated tourist spot.
In the late evening, exhausted, they will be brought to their hotel to spend a few hours of sleep. They must wake up early the next morning, usually at around six, for their breakfast.
An hour or so later they must hop into the bus and off they are rushed from place to place, frequently in the suburbs to watch something unusual or extraordinary that they can never find in their home country. And so the routine is repeated during the duration of their stay.
Apart from the tour-guided programme, the one irritating thing about group tour is that tour companies have the habit of arranging visits to selected shops merchandising either medical or beauty products or food items or any consumer goods.
The modus operandi is all the same: you are brought to a shop selling, say, ginseng products. Once inside, operation salesmanship begins.
A senior staff will be on hand to explain to you non-stop the history of ginseng with all the images thrown in, tracing the humble beginning of this plant tuber until its transformation into a phenomenal, global sensation.
The 45 minutes or so of lecturing will culminate in the final battle for your wallets. Immediately the frontline troops (sales assistants) will move in for the “kill” and engage you in a more intense discussion on the merits of this wonderful miracle that can cure all your ailments. You can say bye-bye to your doctors for good.
Or if it is a beauty ptoduct, the salesgirls will place some stickers on your face and voila!…they tell you your eye bags or wrinkles have diminished considerably, though, when you look at the mirror there is hardly any change. And when they show you the price tags, you are ready to faint. How exorbitant!
Some sightseers might give in and open their wallets or credit cards mostly because they feel somewhat guilty if they don’t buy after listening to such a long discourse. Or somehow they are won over by the convincing sales pitch.
But if all the visitors keep their wallets shut, the faces of the sales force will undergo dramatic changes—from friendly, warm expressions to stern, hostile looks. They expect you to buy their products but you let them down.
This is one part of the tourist package that really spoils your mood. You sort of have to submit yourself to forced shopping. There have been cases of tourists even being locked up in shops for refusing to buy their products.
Perhaps, all these outlets designated for tourists seem to get the impression that these vacationers are all loaded and they don’t mind paying for expensive items originating from the source country rather than buying the same products in, say, Malaysia.
It’s also a golden opportunity to hike up the prices, especially for foreigners.
When we visit a foreign country, we want to enjoy the sights and sounds and beauty of the urban or rural environment. We want to immerse ourselves, however briefly, in the culture and history of the people.
It’s high time tour companies removed compulsory shopping in selected places from the programme and allow, instead, the travellers one free day to go shopping or window shopping at their own pleasure or roam the streets randomly. That will make their day.
Phlip Rodrigues is a retired journalist.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
- Focus Malaysia.
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