The more you tip, the better you are treated.

This may be the logic of China's travel authorities.

The National Tourism Administration has agreed to a tipping plan for the country's travel agencies.

The Guangdong China Travel Service has been listed as a pilot organization for a trial effort. The agency is initiating the plan by allowing the agency to collect tips from Chinese tourists.

It is telling all its clients to tip their tour guides freely.

Tipping, popular in many Western countries to reward good service, remains generally unacceptable in China.

Travel agencies normally calculate the money for guides' services into their package fees. So Chinese tourists are reluctant to pay guides any extra money for services.

The income of travel guides in China is normally composed of two parts: a basic salary and subsidy from their employers, and commissions from stores where tourists stop and shop.

Travel agencies pay their guides as little as possible to lower costs. This means many guides try to make their fortunes from other means, sometimes cutting back on sight-seeing programs from tourists' schedules while adding shopping excursions. They often escort their tourists to high-priced stores to earn more commissions.

Some greedy guides extort tips from the tourists in advance, calling them a prerequisite for good service.

Such malpractice has turned the travel industry into one of the most reviled sectors in China in recent years.

But can the travel agencies' tipping plan remove the wrongdoers, or will it make matters worse? Is it moral to ask tourists to pay more for kinder treatment?

It is the travel department that should clean its house.

Besides, consumers are quite free already to offer tips, so the idea that tipping can help travel agencies improve their service sounds illogical.

Only by bettering tourism management can the service problems in China's travel industry be effectively tackled.

(China Daily August 20, 2004)