new tourist markets

We are at the end of the so called Golden Week of Mainland China. This week is normally around the 1st of October, and results in pretty much the whole of China being off work.

There are more and more people in China that have a free spendable income and since the recreation industry is not developed that well, people spend it on trips (see my previous posting). Hence the big influx of mainland tourist during all holiday periods. They come here for shopping and sightseeing.

On the other side they have learned from countries around them that stockmarkets can give you a good income as well.

So some smart ones decided to combine both interestests. In the last week a number of "theme" trips have been organized. The theme was investment, so basically a master class on investing. THere was a 20 year old busconductor that wants to change her job to become full time investor now....

Many people still seem to have the idea that everyone get rich by investing, and they forget you can loose money as well. Another one was that if friend A invested in company X before and made money, that if I invest now....i will make money as well.

Ah well...interesting to see new business opportunities develop!

mainland tourist shopping tour scams

In the last months regularly messages popped up that mainland China tourists visiting Hong Kong were lead into shopping scams. They pay a low fare to visit Hong Kong by guided tour. Once here they are here, they get dragged along all sorts of shops to purchase goods.

Of course the tourguide will gets his\her commision from this.

In this article action and prompt follow up is demanded by the Shenzen tourist authority.

Interestingly enough, during the weekend 2 cases were high lighted on TV.
One could be a little dodgy, where the product either didn't meet clients expectations or indeed was sold something else then that was on the invoice.

Case 2 was more interesting. A person mentioned he was being ripped off by a jeweler, he bought a watch thinking it had diamonds on it. He showed a receipt and everything. So when the reporters went to contact the shop.... they said they have not had and dont have a watch that looks like that in their collection.
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Now... this sounds dodgy, either the jeweler is putting up a story...or there is a new series of copycat events coming up. A new way of getting money, by pretending you have been sold fake goods and then get them exchanged for either real, or get your money back.

THat they are good in copying and coming up with creative business ideas can be read at Marc van der Chijs his blog about a joke with fake melrose pizza

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UPDATE 08April07:

There have been some major activities to cut down on illegal practices. One jeweller has been raided by customs and excise officers and goods have been taken away for investigation.

People found guilty can expect up to 5 years in jail and 500K HKD fines according to a government website