Purchasing tickets in advance might have got some mainlanders into trouble, but not buying enough was even worse.

A package "zero-fee" tour group from Northwest China's Qinghai Province was abandoned by their angry local guide for over an hour, because they had not bought enough fom shops they were taken to.

A zero-fee tour is a cut-rate package that charges the tourists less than the basic cost but makes money via commissions from shops.

The Hong Kong Consumer Council says 1,364 mainland tourists griped about their shopping experience in 2006.

"The aggrieved tourists account for 3 percent of the total complaints we handled last year, which is fairly small," says a spokeswoman for the Hong Kong Consumer Council.

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