Video Blog: Cops and Tourists Rumble in Macau
December 6, 2007
With a fusion of European and Chinese influences, a prime location near the coast, and booming casinos, Macau has become one of China's top tourist destinations. Macau's massive casinos rake in more gambling revenue than Las Vegas, and each year over 24 million people come to experience some of the city's extensive offerings.
But, as you can see from the video, one group of tourists didn't have the most positive experience during their visit. About a hundred twenty tourists got in a fight with their guide, which had to be broken up by several armed police.
Big police riots aren't really something you see every day in Macau, so what went wrong? We still don't know all of the details, and different media outlets have slightly different stories, but here's a general idea:
A group of about 120 tourists wanted to see more historic sites, but instead the guide pressured them to go shopping. When they wanted to go back into the locked tour buses, two policemen refused them entrance. This refusal resulted in a five-hour stand-off with forty armed guards. Four police were injured, and five tourists were arrested and later released for public disturbance.
While this experience is a little extreme (okay, maybe more than a little), this Macau tour is hardly the only one that views tourists as eager consumers. If you think about it, without being properly oriented in a new environment, tourists are pretty helpless.
In parts of Fiji, a "tour guide" might offer free informational sites to tourists, only to coerce them to buy merchandise from his friends. If you're in the middle of nowhere, buying an extra souvenir is significantly safer than taking your chances in the jungle.
Sometimes English teachers will have the offer of government-subsidized, official tours of Beijing where many of the special sites include several stops at government-run stores. These are loaded with "cultural demonstrations" with the expectation of purchasing many items later.
But in these cases, since Chinese government subsidizes the tours, the expectation is implicitly known from the beginning. Paying extra money for special Chinese teas or medicines is a pretty low cost in exchange for a "free" tour.
The Chinese tourists in Macau clearly weren't on board with the shopping expectation, and they shouldn't have to be left to the mercy of merchants when they just want to see historic sites.
Since we don't know the real story, yet, it's impossible make definitive conclusions. But personally, if I were one of the tourists with a choice between going shopping and going to prison, I would rather spend my money on souvenirs than posting bail.
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