Tour guides not necessarily the villains

Are tour guides also poor workers who need protecting? That is a question that needs more discussion, especially on Workers' Day.

A video showing a female tour guide in Xishuangbanna of Yunnan province demanding tourists spend at least 3,000 ($480) on shopping at places where she received kickbacks has caused a stir online. She requested the "ungrateful and immoral" tourists, who spent little, to think of her family burden as she accompanied the tourists four days without a break. After the video about the tour guide aroused an online uproar, the National Tourism Administration on Sunday urged the Yunnan authorities to probe into this case and strengthen regulation.

For a long time, tour guides have being making headlines for coercing tourists to go shopping or spending extra money at tourist sites, despite the Tourism Law that came into effect in 2013 which bans such practices.