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A group of 24 foreign tourists were pressured by their tour guide to buy items at a shop in China’s Chengdu City and locked inside when they refused to make purchases.
Shawn Tok, winner of the 2007 Campus SuperStar competition, recently revealed in a series of Instagram Stories that he had traveled with a tour group of 23 others on a nine-day trip in November, Asia One reported.
They had been forced to buy jade, silverware, combs and herbal medicines, and refused to let the group leave the shop until his sales quota was met, local outlet 8Days reported.
The travelers say they spent about 105,000 yuan (US$14,850) during the tour, but the guide insisted it was insufficient.
He allegedly stopped people from sleeping on the bus, forced them to listen to product pitches and threatened to cancel the tour when they declined to shop.
Shawn said he later checked the tour contract and found no clause requiring mandatory purchases.
He added that, under local law, shopping stops not listed in the contract are illegal.
The group presented transaction histories and receipts to police as evidence of what they described as a forced-shopping scam.
After Chinese authorities intervened, the tour agency reportedly issued the travelers a full refund.
The incident has sparked a heated debate on social media, with many users warning against “cheap tours” and dubious operators on social platforms.
“Either do free-and-easy travel or book with a reputable agency,” one user advised, while others criticized the guide’s behaviour.
“Some tour guides really like unreasonable beggars,” a netizen wrote.
China has stepped up enforcement against forced-shopping practices, which often lure customers with low-cost tours and then pressure them into purchases at designated shops.
*The opinions expressed in the article are solely those of the author.*
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