Improving services of tourist sites

Passengers walk out of the Nanjing Railway Station in Nanjing, Oct 6, 2016. The country witnessed a travel peak on the last two days of the week-long National Day holiday as people started to return to school and work.[Photo/Xinhua]

The China National Tourism Administration has announced it is compiling rankings for the quality of the services at tourist attractions, and it released a list of tourist sites that had provided bad services during the National Day holiday. Beijing Times commented on Monday:

The purpose of announcing the rankings is to push to regulate the tourism market, and listing the names of poor tourist sites can let the public be cautious about visiting them. But it will be hard to accomplish that market goal by simply posting a list of "bad" tourist sites, since inclusion on the list does not come with any penalties.

Therefore, some experts are suggesting the tourism administration should be more empowered, especially when it comes to bad service providers.

However, it should be noted that if the tourism authorities draw up such a list it may not accurately reflect tourists' own experiences.

To regulate the tourism market, a more feasible solution is empowering the market to endorse good tourism services. Once scenic sites provide good services, there is no need for them to be listed by the tourism authorities, as word-of-mouth promotion will attract visitors.

More important is taking measures to regulate the visitors' behavior at tourist attractions. Bad behavior can be curbed by imposing on-the-spot fines.