tipping for guided tour
Feb 26th, 2009, 02:36 PM
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tipping for guided tour
we are going on an arranged tour of China. it is recommended to tip local guides 4 to 6 dollars for 1/2 or entire day tours - same for bus drivers. this is the same recommendation as for tours we have taken in Europe and South America. is this out of line considering the value of our dollar to the other currencies?
Feb 26th, 2009, 02:46 PM
#2
This issue has been discussed here at length - try using the nice new search function!
Briefly, the issue is not the value of the dollar, the issue that China is NOT a tipping culture. The only people who tip are clueless foreigners on tours. If you try to tip a taxi driver, he'll figure you don't understand the currency and give it back to you.
Briefly, the issue is not the value of the dollar, the issue that China is NOT a tipping culture. The only people who tip are clueless foreigners on tours. If you try to tip a taxi driver, he'll figure you don't understand the currency and give it back to you.
Feb 26th, 2009, 06:45 PM
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The "best intention" is to behave in accordance with local customs, and the best thing of all is to ask about them before travelling as ellenm is doing, and then to behave appropriately when in China. In local custom there is no tipping, and all that is happening here is that ellenm is being cheated by a tour company pretending to have low prices by hiding the cost in tipping "recommendations", quite possibly sprung on her only after she booked, and quite possibly far from avoidable. If she read the tipping "recommendations" before she booked, then she cannot reasonably avoid them even though she is being cheated. If she only heard about them after booking, then if she's willing to put up with the hassling she will almost certainly receive from these corrupt individuals, then she should certainly not tip anyone. Additionally the figures quoted are obscene in terms of real local costs, and the highest I've yet seen, and if actually retained by the guides will give them incomes stratospheric in Chinese terms (and that's before we add in all the kick-backs from restaurants, sights, and, worst of all, shopping "opportunities" they'll be providing.) Ellenm should not shop anywhere she's taken by these people, nor be seeking from them advice on the "right price" for anything at all. Nor tipping them.
Peter N-H
Peter N-H
Feb 27th, 2009, 04:57 AM
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WOW, I am a local tour guide in the USA and spend 8 to 12 hours a day with tour bus folks usually on 4-day tours. I wish I got $4 to $6 a day (we are a tipping culture!)!! If I get $1 a day per person ($4 or $5 total)I am lucky. We do much better on a 1 day tour (people seldom tip less than $1 per person). Of course, sometimes I get little gifts, lots of hugs and "best tour guide ever" words, and invitations to people homes - tips are another story. Interesting.
Feb 27th, 2009, 07:04 AM
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Peter- Not everyone knows 100% of the customs in a foreign country, for various reasons. And how is offering a tip inappropriate? Are you inducing people into undue psychological trauma by offering a goodwill gesture even if it is not yet accepted into a "culture"?
Feb 27th, 2009, 07:18 AM
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> and what is wrong with tipping if you care to????????????
Exactly same thing as is wrong with not tipping if you don't care to when you visit the USA.
Even supposing this was the USA (for instance), should you tip people you know to be overcharging you and deliberately cheating you? Is an improper charge foisted on you without the option when you've booked a service actually a tip? Or is it a con? Are tips supposed to be an incentive to corruption? Would you approve of a system elsewhere in which only non-whites were pressured for tips but not locals or visiting whites? Substitute 'Chinese' for 'white' and that's what's happening in China.
There is no tipping in China other than that foisted upon inexperienced foreign travellers, and that is why you do not tip. You only tip (but this would more rightly be 'offer a gift') if someone voluntarily performs a truly exceptional service completely above and beyond what was contracted for, and even then there's no obligation. When dealing with real Chinese (as opposed to those who set out to prey on naive tourists) you'll find it very hard to get them to accept. Waitresses will pursue you down the street to return money left on the table. Even most cab drivers will insist on returning all your change. There are still signs in some hotels reminding you not to tip. There are signs at Beijing airport attempting to protect foreigners from their own naivety by reminding them not to tip porters. The signs are only in English--the Chinese don't need telling. Some foreigners apparently can't be told often enough.
Being foreign and not bothering to take the measure of local norms when travelling is regrettable wherever you travel. Knowing what the local norms are and deliberately ignoring them is another matter.
There is a reason why a popular term for tips amongst guides is 'ben laowai fei': 'stupid foreigner tax.'
Peter N-H
Exactly same thing as is wrong with not tipping if you don't care to when you visit the USA.
Even supposing this was the USA (for instance), should you tip people you know to be overcharging you and deliberately cheating you? Is an improper charge foisted on you without the option when you've booked a service actually a tip? Or is it a con? Are tips supposed to be an incentive to corruption? Would you approve of a system elsewhere in which only non-whites were pressured for tips but not locals or visiting whites? Substitute 'Chinese' for 'white' and that's what's happening in China.
There is no tipping in China other than that foisted upon inexperienced foreign travellers, and that is why you do not tip. You only tip (but this would more rightly be 'offer a gift') if someone voluntarily performs a truly exceptional service completely above and beyond what was contracted for, and even then there's no obligation. When dealing with real Chinese (as opposed to those who set out to prey on naive tourists) you'll find it very hard to get them to accept. Waitresses will pursue you down the street to return money left on the table. Even most cab drivers will insist on returning all your change. There are still signs in some hotels reminding you not to tip. There are signs at Beijing airport attempting to protect foreigners from their own naivety by reminding them not to tip porters. The signs are only in English--the Chinese don't need telling. Some foreigners apparently can't be told often enough.
Being foreign and not bothering to take the measure of local norms when travelling is regrettable wherever you travel. Knowing what the local norms are and deliberately ignoring them is another matter.
There is a reason why a popular term for tips amongst guides is 'ben laowai fei': 'stupid foreigner tax.'
Peter N-H
Feb 27th, 2009, 07:34 AM
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To cut to the chase, a repost of a discussion of all the usual arguments:
And here are the standard retorts:
'Oh you're so cheap'
Me, other better-informed travellers, foreigners resident in China (except for a few really clueless ones or those who haven't been there long enough to have their Chinese colleagues laugh them out of it), and 1.3 billion Chinese. They never tip. I'm in good (and very ample) company.
'Oh but these people aren't taking tourist services--those are the ones you have to tip'
No. The Chinese do not tip for these services either, and when recently a Chinese tour company did start to introduce such tips for Chinese tourists, it was the subject of sharp editorial in Chinese newspapers and the idea was dropped.
Only rapacious tour companies targeting foreigners (including some Western ones simply packaging up a product that's run by Chinese on the ground and who don't understand what's happening) gull them into handing out free extra money. And this is the money some of the guides themselves, whether they speak English, German, or Arabic, call 'stupid foreigner tax'.
'Oh but Xiao Mei was such a sweetie and worked so hard'
Xiao Mei has it very easy compared to most Chinese. She works in a relatively pleasant, clean, safe, and civilised environment. Lucky for her she's not running a corner shop or other small enterprise at which she would be working from the first hour there might be a customer until the very last, and for a much smaller return.
Xiao Mei has also been getting yummy kick-backs from every angle that can be conceived, and her total annual income, including the money made by cheating foreigners, may be as high as US$30,000 (according to a foreign professor at one of China's tourism colleges, and the head of one foreign-owned Beijing-based tour company).
That's several times the salary of even a university professor. Does the earning of much of it by graft actually deserve further encouragement? No wonder Xiao Mei is so sweet and rushes about so much. She's got a second mortgage to support (or maybe a third by now).
'Oh, but tips are all they get.'
You heard this from the tour company, right? Is that a reliable source?
As already mentioned, it may be even worse. The tour guide may be paying the tour company for the right to take out the tour. And it's worth doing that because of all the opportunities for graft taking out a tour group presents. Different tour companies organise things differently, and sometimes restaurant kick-backs go straight to the tour company, as hotel ones do. But the opportunities for kick-backs from shopping, of which the cheaper tours tend to ensure there's plenty and to spare, provide the most luscious opportunities. If you're given a 'discount card' as a supposed benefit of travelling with a particular company, but sure to put it away. It only guarantees that prices are pushed up yet higher to cover the cost of the kick-back, and tells the seller which guide the kick-back goes to.
Even supposing there was tipping in China (which there isn't) or that tour guides were some special case (which they aren't) is this the kind of behaviour that should be rewarded, or the kind of structure that should be reinforced?
'Oh, but I gave a tip and it wasn't refused'
Oh please. 'I left the window open and the burglar didn't object at all.' This is nothing more than proof of the unscrupulousness of the guide. Try to tip in most real circumstances and you'll meet with puzzlement or an outright refusal. Trying to get a taxi driver to accept a gratuity for returning some valuable item you left in a cab can involve practically forcing open his fingers to put the money in.
Waitresses pursue you down the street to return change left on the table (and if they don't you're eating in the wrong, tourist-targeting places). There's simply no mechanism for dealing with this; it isn't the local custom.
But within the carefully crafted bubble of tours organised for foreigners, the industry has learned that there are some foreigners who inexplicably insist on handing over free money, and they've re-engineered things to take advantage of visitors in this way as well as in many others. They certainly want you to believe that for some reason all normal rules are suspended.
'Oh, but she expected a tip'
And expectation is proof of a right, as opposed to abuse of the visitor, in what way?
'Oh, there used to be no tipping, but China's capitalist now.'
As already pointed out, there's no correlation between being capitalist and having tipping. Australia, New Zealand, and Japan would all be a bit surprised to find themselves being called communist, to name but three. Even in countries where there is tipping the amount of the tip, and the services attracting tips vary widely. In China, as in some other countries, it's nil.
If you're staying in a foreign-run hotel, try looking in the manual in your room. In many cases you'll find a reminder that you shouldn't tip. In a few cases there are still signs up about this. If your bell-boy pressures you for a tip, just call the management. But the chances are good he'll be fired, so consider your actions carefully. (But in many hundreds of room nights in all grades of hotels including many of the most luxurious in China I've only ever once been asked for a tip.)
Live and work in China and you'll find foreigners who tip are the subject of puzzled derision among your Chinese colleagues. Many in China are embarrassed at the exploitation of foreigners by tour guides (although many others think foreigners are by definition fair game), and resent the sums they amass, although in some cases simply envious that they do not have the same opportunity. Even someone with first-class English who starts work at a foreign company or joint-venture is unlikely to be taking home at the very best more than a 30th of some tour guides' income; English-speaking staff at hotels make less still (although demand in recent times has been pushing their salaries up a bit).
If, armed with all this knowledge, you knowingly book with a tour company that practices this kind of deception, then perhaps you'll feel obliged to fork out, although you'd be wiser to choose a different tour company to start with, and all you are doing is ensuring the continuation of these rip-offs. If you take a one-day tour with an English-speaking guide you will not be expected to tip (there's no magic link between speaking English and getting tipped, in case that isn't already clear--there is no tipping), and certainly on tours also taken by Chinese the question will never come up.
In China, the sum you agree for a service is the price you pay. Not a penny (fen, in China) more or less.
And here are the standard retorts:
'Oh you're so cheap'
Me, other better-informed travellers, foreigners resident in China (except for a few really clueless ones or those who haven't been there long enough to have their Chinese colleagues laugh them out of it), and 1.3 billion Chinese. They never tip. I'm in good (and very ample) company.
'Oh but these people aren't taking tourist services--those are the ones you have to tip'
No. The Chinese do not tip for these services either, and when recently a Chinese tour company did start to introduce such tips for Chinese tourists, it was the subject of sharp editorial in Chinese newspapers and the idea was dropped.
Only rapacious tour companies targeting foreigners (including some Western ones simply packaging up a product that's run by Chinese on the ground and who don't understand what's happening) gull them into handing out free extra money. And this is the money some of the guides themselves, whether they speak English, German, or Arabic, call 'stupid foreigner tax'.
'Oh but Xiao Mei was such a sweetie and worked so hard'
Xiao Mei has it very easy compared to most Chinese. She works in a relatively pleasant, clean, safe, and civilised environment. Lucky for her she's not running a corner shop or other small enterprise at which she would be working from the first hour there might be a customer until the very last, and for a much smaller return.
Xiao Mei has also been getting yummy kick-backs from every angle that can be conceived, and her total annual income, including the money made by cheating foreigners, may be as high as US$30,000 (according to a foreign professor at one of China's tourism colleges, and the head of one foreign-owned Beijing-based tour company).
That's several times the salary of even a university professor. Does the earning of much of it by graft actually deserve further encouragement? No wonder Xiao Mei is so sweet and rushes about so much. She's got a second mortgage to support (or maybe a third by now).
'Oh, but tips are all they get.'
You heard this from the tour company, right? Is that a reliable source?
As already mentioned, it may be even worse. The tour guide may be paying the tour company for the right to take out the tour. And it's worth doing that because of all the opportunities for graft taking out a tour group presents. Different tour companies organise things differently, and sometimes restaurant kick-backs go straight to the tour company, as hotel ones do. But the opportunities for kick-backs from shopping, of which the cheaper tours tend to ensure there's plenty and to spare, provide the most luscious opportunities. If you're given a 'discount card' as a supposed benefit of travelling with a particular company, but sure to put it away. It only guarantees that prices are pushed up yet higher to cover the cost of the kick-back, and tells the seller which guide the kick-back goes to.
Even supposing there was tipping in China (which there isn't) or that tour guides were some special case (which they aren't) is this the kind of behaviour that should be rewarded, or the kind of structure that should be reinforced?
'Oh, but I gave a tip and it wasn't refused'
Oh please. 'I left the window open and the burglar didn't object at all.' This is nothing more than proof of the unscrupulousness of the guide. Try to tip in most real circumstances and you'll meet with puzzlement or an outright refusal. Trying to get a taxi driver to accept a gratuity for returning some valuable item you left in a cab can involve practically forcing open his fingers to put the money in.
Waitresses pursue you down the street to return change left on the table (and if they don't you're eating in the wrong, tourist-targeting places). There's simply no mechanism for dealing with this; it isn't the local custom.
But within the carefully crafted bubble of tours organised for foreigners, the industry has learned that there are some foreigners who inexplicably insist on handing over free money, and they've re-engineered things to take advantage of visitors in this way as well as in many others. They certainly want you to believe that for some reason all normal rules are suspended.
'Oh, but she expected a tip'
And expectation is proof of a right, as opposed to abuse of the visitor, in what way?
'Oh, there used to be no tipping, but China's capitalist now.'
As already pointed out, there's no correlation between being capitalist and having tipping. Australia, New Zealand, and Japan would all be a bit surprised to find themselves being called communist, to name but three. Even in countries where there is tipping the amount of the tip, and the services attracting tips vary widely. In China, as in some other countries, it's nil.
If you're staying in a foreign-run hotel, try looking in the manual in your room. In many cases you'll find a reminder that you shouldn't tip. In a few cases there are still signs up about this. If your bell-boy pressures you for a tip, just call the management. But the chances are good he'll be fired, so consider your actions carefully. (But in many hundreds of room nights in all grades of hotels including many of the most luxurious in China I've only ever once been asked for a tip.)
Live and work in China and you'll find foreigners who tip are the subject of puzzled derision among your Chinese colleagues. Many in China are embarrassed at the exploitation of foreigners by tour guides (although many others think foreigners are by definition fair game), and resent the sums they amass, although in some cases simply envious that they do not have the same opportunity. Even someone with first-class English who starts work at a foreign company or joint-venture is unlikely to be taking home at the very best more than a 30th of some tour guides' income; English-speaking staff at hotels make less still (although demand in recent times has been pushing their salaries up a bit).
If, armed with all this knowledge, you knowingly book with a tour company that practices this kind of deception, then perhaps you'll feel obliged to fork out, although you'd be wiser to choose a different tour company to start with, and all you are doing is ensuring the continuation of these rip-offs. If you take a one-day tour with an English-speaking guide you will not be expected to tip (there's no magic link between speaking English and getting tipped, in case that isn't already clear--there is no tipping), and certainly on tours also taken by Chinese the question will never come up.
In China, the sum you agree for a service is the price you pay. Not a penny (fen, in China) more or less.
