Guiyang takes steps to clean up tourism industry

Guiyang, the capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, has launched strict measures to control its tourism market following multiple complaints.

The complaints focus on a range of issues, including illicit businesses and services, cheating tourists or forcing them to shop, price gouging and discrepancies between online advertisements and provided tourism activities.

Guiyang's bureau of culture and tourism held private talks with five travel agencies that had received a more significant number of complaints, urging them to regulate operations and rectify relevant problems.

For shops with a massive volume of complaints, the bureau worked with other government departments to conduct joint investigations. A notice on further enhancing supervision over the tourism market and cracking down on illicit businesses has been issued to travel agencies around the city.

Since June this year, the city's comprehensive law enforcement department for culture-oriented businesses has collected over 30 tourism-complaint-related cases, with more than 20 cases being investigated and relevant tourism companies being fined.

Guiyang's bureau of culture and tourism will continue to regulate the tourism market through heavier punishments, enhancing supervision mechanisms, monitoring the whole industrial chain, applying new technologies and promoting honesty in the tourism industry, among other steps.