No more tourist buffets!

July 27, 2009 11:55 AM

How prevalent are unscrupulous tour guides? How do I learn about their back-handed practices?

On a recent family vacation, I hired a few tour guides and private drivers to take us around certain areas, as some less mobile family members were also traveling and hiring a local was more or less unavoidable.

I noticed that occasionally our guide or driver would recommend a restaurant or store with its share of tourists. I assumed that these places gave commissions or kickbacks to our guide, a fact which some of our tour guides did not even hide very well (to my annoyance).

Many of my previous travels have been independent, and I have stumbled across shopowners who would even admit that they would raise their prices when tour groups come by, as they would need to pay their cut to the tour guide. I would love to travel independently at all times, but sometimes the fact just can't be avoided for language, safety, distance, or mobility reasons.

It really irks me to be paying someone for a service, and then be milked for even more commission. Is this standard practice? How do tour guides and group operators usually conduct business and make money? What kinds of commissions do they receive at shops, restaurants, tourist sites, and other places? What are signs to look out for, and what can I do to hire more scrupulous guides?

Thanks.

posted by gushn to travel & transportation (8 comments total)

I should add that we did go on some day trips with some very excellent, caring guides who I will be referring to my friends and possibly traveling again with. I do not intend to cast a negative light on the entire tourist industry, merely to learn more about less transparent practices.
posted by gushn at 12:06 PM on July 27

This is a very common practice. It goes with big hotels, popular destinations, and dense herds of tourists. If your guide isn't getting some type of consideration, then he or she is leaving tax free money on the table. I wouldn't focus so much on whether or not the guide is getting a kickback. I'd focus on whether or not the food or shop was what you wanted. The only way I can think to avoid this would be to patronize businesses that aren't aimed at tourists.
posted by rdr at 12:26 PM on July 27

What are signs to look out for, and what can I do to hire more scrupulous guides?

Well, if my Carribbean experiences taught me anything it was to hold out for the ones wearing socks.

Seriously though, the problem you describe would disappoint me, too and if in a similar situation I would make it clear up front to my prospective guide that I did not want to follow the tourists and go where tourists congregate. I think that attempting the local language and having done some research beforehand regarding where you might want to go would likely help you get your point across (perhaps you already did this). Before you remain too disgusted with your guides, I'd try to remember that many (most?) of their customers may actually want souvenir shops and hamburgers with ketchup.
posted by applemeat at 12:28 PM on July 27

I should add that we did go on some day trips with some very excellent, caring guides

I think this is key. When the expectations for a tour are "three hours around the Roman Forum on foot" rather than "two weeks in Italy, all-inclusive", it's in a guide's interest to get you to really enjoy yourself, because they depend on people who either aren't getting enough from a guidebook and have already decided to not take a tour with a larger group. The best tours I've taken have been walking tours in major European cities, because you're able to orient yourself along a particular geographical or historical axis and then do something either more in detail later, visiting the sites you loved again, or do something totally different the next day, without the guide.

This is dependent on allowing yourself enough time to do this, though. So on your next family vacation, travel somewhere for a longer time, visit fewer destinations when there, tap into local knowledge about what's happening seasonally there, and time visits around local festivals when everyone's enjoying the scene, not just tourists. Resist the temptation to have "everything arranged in advance" even though that sounds better from the comfort of home.

For example - I live in Poland right now, and my mom, who has never been here and speaks no Polish, is coming in September. The country's completely chock-a-block with wonders and amazing stuff to see and do, but we're only hitting my "hometown", Warsaw, and Krakow over two weeks, because we don't want to have to plan every moment of the trip. We're staying in apartments found through TripAdvisor and traveling by train. We've got a guidebook and I speak enough Polish to get by for tourism purposes. So while the whole pace of the trip is designed with no itinerary except the days we arrive in each city and where we're going to stay, we can do those things because I have local knowledge, have no problem getting tickets for the bus, am happy to make some of my own meals in the apartment's kitchen, that kind of thing. This might be hard to do if you and your family arrived with no local knowledge, or a need for kid-specific things in the local language (formula, diapers, non-weird local food).

At the same time, tourism is hugely important in areas without much of a cash economy otherwise. I always try to buy something small and portable - a postcard, some drinks - if I'm at one of these places, but I've never purchased, say, a carpet from Turkey or a jade necklace from China. I don't have the local knowledge to do so, and I'm not about to trust the local vendors who might be offering me "a special deal." But will I buy a little locket, or a cool pair of Moroccan slippers? Yes - because at a low-enough price, the hassle of getting back to that place to get the item outweighs the relative trifle spent on it.

Overall, I'd say that trips which are more about experiences and less about the things one takes home with them are the best. And there's no reason why a digital camera you already own can't produce enough souvenirs on its own - make photobooks for family who couldn't join you, make a calendar for next year so each month the whole family can write their dentist appointments under a picture of that great restaurant by the marina on that wonderful island where you heard that amazing local band and your kids started dancing under the stars. (See?)
posted by mdonley at 12:30 PM on July 27

For any package tour:

1) Any shopping they take you to will have a kickback. The "factory" or "workshop" they take you to probably doesn't even exist outside of the tour. A location convenient to tourists is not generally a good one for a business.

2) Any optional activities will have a kickback to the tour guide, if they are lucky, or the money will just go directly back to the operator. This is usually 25-30% over the true cost, although they'll take you in the bus sosometimes this works out.

3) Any included dinners won't include alcohol purchases, and will have a kickback to the tour guide on that bill. For your money you get the house wine at best.

This is so prevalent that I've even seen it on a $25 day trip in Mexico City to the pyramids. There was a stop at a jade factory on the way, and the guide helpfully pointed out one of the selling guys on the grounds as "a good deal if you are interested".

But you have to realize that a lot of tourists really do like this. They want to buy wine in a cellar in France after a tasting, not in any old wine shop. "Who cares if it costs a bit more or the guide gets a kickback... this is vacation! And it's so much cheaper than at home anyways."
posted by smackfu at 12:33 PM on July 27

I had an awful tour guide in Turkey. I knew all the scams in advance, and made sure we got a guide who was registered and recommended by the hotel owners-- and he was STILL terrible! When we told him in advance that we weren't interested in shopping at all, (just in seeing the sights,) he sulked for hours and wouldn't even speak to me. Then he still needled us into going to his house-- where he just happened to have a rug store!! He was insulting, passive aggressive, and rude. He said he hated Americans for being so closed-minded (because we told him we didn't want to go rug-shopping at his friend's store.)

Which is all to say, even if you vet a guide beforehand, and even if you tell him in advance you don't want to go anywhere other than sites you are requesting-- the crooked ones will find a way to get what they want anyway, and they'll make you miserable for having the nerve to try and outmaneuver them.

You can only do so much to avoid being taken advantage of, so at a certain point just be prepared to shrug your shoulders and try to enjoy yourself, even if you are taken to a tourist buffet after specifically requesting a small, intimate cafe. In some countries, it's just part and parcel of the trade-off of having someone show you around in your own tongue.
posted by np312 at 1:33 PM on July 27

Unless your guides work for a company that bans the practice and pays higher rates to compensate, it's going to happen - often guide rates are quite low for what they know and the training they have (consider what you pay an expert consultant on anything at home - guides in most countries make a fraction of that). The commission makes up the difference. But a good guide will take your desires into consideration - they're not going to turn your sight seeing tour into a shopping expedition, and are going to make sure the shops and restaurants that they take you to are what you are looking for. A good guide also realizes that if you are happy, you'll spend more.

Referring to the practice as scrupulous vs unscrupulous is a western values-based judgment call - in many of the countries that this happens, it's simply the culture, and sometimes people get commissions for generating sales to locals as well.

The other thing that people often don't realize is that they pay less for things almost as often as they pay more because they are with a guide. I know a lot of people don't believe it, but until recently I worked in the industry and a lot of restaurants and shops will offer groups with guides discounted prices because it keeps the guides coming back - the power in these situations lies with your guide - they are the repeat customer not you, and a good guide will use this to your advantage. They will still make a buck off of it, but consider it part of their pay and let it go.

And the key to getting that small cafe and not the buffet lunch - clearly offer to buy your guide lunch. They really don't always make a lot of money - especially if you're not a shopper, or they're only working one or two days a week or two months of the year. They are far more likely to be eating for free at the buffet.

I've seen lots of good guides and bad guides in action, and the difference is not whether they take a little off the top of your purchases. It's whether they have the information you want, and stick to what you want to do. I encourage you to consider that as criteria. At the end of the day, that's what matters. And if you love that carpet that you bought and are happy with what you paid for it, why does it matter that your guide took a cut. And if you didn't love it or the price, well, then why did you buy it?
posted by scrute at 6:44 PM on July 27

Thanks everybody, great answers all around.

I guess you do your research while you're at home, then when you're abroad at some point you just shrug it off and try to enjoy yourself.
posted by gushn at 12:01 PM on July 28