Memo to Macau Guides: Don’t Mess With Mainland Chinese Tourists

Travel Blog • Jim Benning • 12.05.07 | 3:48 PM ET

This has to be my favorite travel-related news story of the year. From the BBC: “Riot police in China’s enclave of Macau have been called in to calm mainland tourists angry they were being shown too many shops and not enough sites.” The report is a tad sketchy, but it seems that roughly 100 tourists were involved, traveling by bus in Macau, and their guides were leading them to the shops. “The tourists had complained to their guides that they wanted to see more of the former Portuguese colony’s historic sites,” the report states. “They said they were being pressured into buying goods.”

When a number of them weren’t allowed back onto four buses, “a scuffle broke out,” according to the report. Nearly two dozen police officers with riot shields were called in and a stand-off ensued before the tourists returned to their hotels.

I love it. While traveling around China several years ago I encountered countless Chinese bus tourists in matching baseball caps, but few independent Chinese travelers.

Incidents like this are bound to change that. If they don’t have one already, the Chinese need their own version of Rick Steves preaching the indie travel gospel.

How about a new book: “Macau Through the Back Door?”

Photo by mocvdleung via Flickr, (Creative Commons).