"One guide is hard to find" in Beijing, with a daily salary of thousands of yuan. Beijing | The Forbidden City | Daily salary
Currently, summer vacations are even hotter than hot weather.
With the start of summer vacation, the tourism market in many regions has entered a hot mode, with airport and train stations experiencing a surge in foot traffic, popular scenic spots and museums being overcrowded with tourists, making it difficult to obtain a single ticket. Even tour guides in Beijing have become very popular, sometimes earning a daily salary of thousands of yuan, making it difficult to find a guide. Faced with surging crowds and record breaking temperatures, tour guides and tourists are also experiencing difficult tests.
A surge of summer tourists
Having worked as a tour guide for 17 years, feeling overwhelmed
With record breaking temperatures, this summer vacation may become the hottest year in history.
Li Yuanyuan, who has been a tour guide in Beijing for 17 years, has a direct feeling of the booming tourism market. "It's not an exaggeration to say that from the Spring Festival of 2023 until now, except for Mondays, I have been leading groups in the Forbidden City almost every day, and sometimes it's just too tiring!"
"I have been in the industry for 17 years, and I am 41 years old. This summer, I suddenly felt overwhelmed." Li Yuanyuan is a senior tour guide at her travel agency. During the day, she needs to lead a tour guide, and at night, she also has to participate in ticket grabbing when she comes home, feeling physically and mentally exhausted. "As soon as I leave the Forbidden City, I want to lie down immediately, not talk, not move."
Despite setting a record for high temperatures this summer in Beijing, tourists from all over the country are flocking to the city, and the Forbidden City is one of the top popular tourist attractions. Faced with a surge of tourists, even in the high temperature of 40 degrees, the entire staff of Li Yuanyuan's company are busy, with over 20 members of the Forbidden City group alone every day.
This summer, the popularity of summer tourism has exceeded many people's imagination. Accompanied by the scene of crowds in the scenic area, the sales of summer tourism products this year have increased significantly compared to the same period in 2019.
According to data provided by Tongcheng Travel to Zhongxin Finance, the number of flight ticket services in the first week of summer increased by about 32% compared to the same period in 2019; The number of hotel reservation services increased by 155% compared to the same period in 2019; The number of tourist attraction ticket services has increased by 37% compared to the same period in 2019.
From the perspective of Ctrip orders, transportation, accommodation, and scenic spot orders all exceeded the same period in 2019. As of July 12th, the top ten popular destinations in China this summer include Beijing, Shanghai, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Xi'an, Hangzhou, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Nanjing, and Changsha.
According to data from Qunar, the pre booking volume of air tickets for travel in the first two weeks of summer increased by 35% compared to the same period in 2019, and the hotel booking volume increased by 1.4 times.
It's not just Beijing fire, the traffic on the Duku Highway is coming one after another. Zhongxin Finance learned from the Aksu Tourism Bureau that since the start of summer vacation mode in June 2023 until July 10, the Aksu region has received 4.3566 million domestic tourists, a year-on-year increase of 38.93%; Realized tourism revenue of 2.28738 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 46.73%.
Summer parent-child families are the absolute mainstay, and the most popular destinations for parent-child travel and study tours are historical and cultural cities such as Beijing and Xi'an. Cheng Chaogong, Chief Researcher of Tongcheng Research Institute, told China News Finance that the unexpected performance of this year's summer tourism peak season is closely related to the rapid return of parent-child family tourism consumption. The proportion of parent-child travel this summer has reached a new high since 2019, and there is a strong demand for travel among families of preschool children and primary and secondary school students, becoming an important "engine" driving the summer tourism boom.
One ticket is difficult to obtain, "one guide is difficult to obtain"
Scratching tickets has become a challenge, and tour guides are not enough
The hot summer vacation has caused a shortage of tickets for some popular tourist attractions, such as the Forbidden City, National Museum, and China Science and Technology Museum. Among them, the ticket rush for the Forbidden City is basically in a second light state at 8 pm.
"There are too many people grabbing tickets. Individual travelers compete for tickets themselves based on speed, while travel agencies have an order of 50 people, but it's not 100% guaranteed that they can get tickets," said Li Yuanyuan.
In Beijing, tour guides have also become a scarce resource, with prices skyrocketing. The previous daily salary of 300-500 yuan has now at least doubled. The reports of "Beijing tour guides in short supply with a daily salary of 1600 yuan" and "unable to hire tour guides with a daily salary of 2500 yuan" make people envy the salary of tour guides.
Even friends from the "Four Seas and Eight Wastelands" sent greetings to Li Yuanyuan through WeChat, saying, "You can't even make money now, can you?"
Li Yuanyuan said that some people jokingly said that Beijing tourism has become "completely empty": no room, no car, no ticket, no tour guide. The reason for the shortage of tour guides is twofold: firstly, due to the impact of the epidemic, many tour guides have changed their careers and not many have stayed to continue as tour guides. Secondly, it is closely related to the tickets. Guests book tour guides after grabbing tickets, but tour guides do not have tickets. Therefore, tour guides with tickets are extremely precious.
"Nowadays, it is difficult to get tickets for underage groups with team tickets, so basically we mobilize tour guides to compete for tickets together. Later on, whoever gets their own tickets will lead the tour." Li Yuanyuan said, "The tour guide service fee is linked to the type of tour and the level of explanation. During the summer, there are indeed tour guides with more than 1000 yuan per day, but this requires tour guides with tickets, and there are even fewer tour guides with tickets and good explanations."
As a treasure level tour guide at her travel agency, Li Yuanyuan revealed her income, which exceeded 1000 yuan per day with a 6-hour lecture tour of the Forbidden City and a high-temperature subsidy provided by the company.
Test under high temperature
Drink six bottles of water a day without using the restroom
Recently, Beijing has experienced continuous high temperatures, which have posed great challenges to tour guides and tourists. The death of a tour guide in Beijing due to heatstroke has attracted great attention.
Li Yuanyuan, there are currently two types of travel teams in Beijing. One is a multi day tour, which can be very tiring for tour guides. Many teams have to watch flag raising ceremonies and arrive at the security checkpoint of Tiananmen Square at 2am every day. There are several scenic spots in the day, and they can only answer the hotel rest after 9pm. After a few days, it's really tiring. Another type is the scenic spot lecture group, which belongs to the type of day tour. The Summer Palace and Prince Gong's Mansion are relatively good because there are trees that can cool down for a while, while the Forbidden City is mostly exposed to sunlight all day long.
As a tour guide in the Forbidden City, the high temperature brings even more intense barbecue. "On July 2nd, I led a 6-hour tour of the Forbidden City. On that day, guests queued up for security checks and were already feeling extremely hot and unwell. I spent the whole day accompanying them to the emergency room of the Forbidden City, but I didn't explain a word that day. That afternoon, when I left the Forbidden City, I also fell ill and contracted shingles."
Tourists often ask Li Yuanyuan, "How many tens of thousands of steps does the Forbidden City take today?"? And her answer is: 18000 is the starting point. Li Yuanyuan said, we have a jargon: Xinjiang tour guides are good at singing and dancing, Xi'an tour guides are good at speaking, and Beijing tour guides have broken legs. In scenic spots in Beijing, take a look at a tour guide's backpack. There must be medicine inside, such as Huoxiang Zhengqi, Ten Drops of Water, Huang's Sound Pill, Tie Di Pill, etc., all of which are common meals.
Taking care of the group for a day, Li Yuanyuan had to drink 6 bottles of mineral water, and her clothes were mostly soaked all day. When they were not dry, she didn't even need to use the restroom. In the Forbidden City, sometimes people have to queue up to buy water, and many tourists buy 12 bottles in a box directly. Buying ice water depends on luck, and you can often see that the freezers in the Forbidden City are empty.
In order to prevent heatstroke, Li Yuanyuan prepared everything that could be protected from the sun, including a sun hat and umbrella, but her arms were still sunburned.
She also brought her own "summer resort". The day before joining the group, she froze one or two bottles of mineral water in the refrigerator at home. That morning, she wrapped them in plastic bags and put them in her backpack to cool down. At noon, frozen mineral water becomes hot water and can almost be used to make tea.
Due to the hot weather, Li Yuanyuan, who was both painful and happy, would carefully prepare the next day's explanation based on the guest's region and age after seeing the guest list every day, using high-quality explanations to attract guests to persevere. "Our biggest wish is not a five-star rating, as long as the guests don't go to the emergency room, their health is good."
In order to alleviate the overcrowding phenomenon of tourist attractions during peak hours and avoid uncomfortable experiences during hot seasons and high temperatures, the Beijing Cultural and Tourism Bureau has guided popular tourist attractions to extend their opening hours appropriately while ensuring safety and service quality. The Palace Museum has issued a summer appointment notice on July 8th, and the opening time has been advanced from 8:30 to 8:00.
The Beijing Tourism Industry Association recently issued a safety reminder that tourists and practitioners should pay attention to their physical condition, maintain sufficient rest and hydration, prepare necessary heatstroke prevention drugs, and tour guides should not bring illnesses to the tour to ensure their own health and safety. In Li Yuanyuan's view, having a healthy body and a healthy soul is the key to serving tourists more comprehensively. We welcome friends from all over the world to come to Beijing for sightseeing and sightseeing, arrange tourism projects reasonably, and turn tourism into travel.
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