Tuen Mun officials offered illegal tours
A TUEN MUN District Board member has admitted helping to arrange overseas tours without a licence and using a district service centre to do so.
The Tuen Mun District Service Centre, whose committee members include district board members Willy Ng Wai-cho, Chu Cho-yan and Sung King-fai, has arranged tours in conjunction with the Eternal East Tours travel agency, both sides have confirmed.
The Sunday Morning Post signed up at the service centre for a two-day tour to the mainland. The receipt issued indicated the tour was organised by the District Service Centre, using Eternal East Tours stationery, but with no licence number.
Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong (TIC) executive director Siu King-Sun said any organisation providing 'out of town tours' for profit had to register as a member of the TIC and possess a licence issued by the Travel Agency Registry. Such an organisation was contravening the Travel Agencies Ordinance if it failed to obtain a licence, or if its advertisements failed to show its licence number.
Tuen Mun District Service Centre chairman Tse Yee-fong acknowledged the centre had organised tours in association with Eternal East since December.
'We are aware that our practice is not in accordance with the ordinance, but we are not doing this for profit; we are just serving our local constituents,' he said.
The centre hoped to take advantage of board members' reputations to publicise its services, Mr Tse said.
'We are now proceeding to change our service so that it complies legally. The tour company will soon operate its business in our centre by sharing the space with us, and at this moment we are only in a transition phase,' he said.
But district board member Willy Ng Wai-cho said he was unaware the tours were being organised illegally and said he had provided the service for the past 10 years.
'As far as I know, there are more than 50 associations in the various districts organising this kind of tours. We just act as a middle man for the local residents and the tour companies,' he said.
Eternal East Tours director Chan Ngok-ping said his company had directly approached several district board member offices in attempts to drum up business, and that the Tuen Mun District Services Centre agreed to provide 'arrangement' services for tours.
'It is true that we approached several district board offices as a way to increase our business, since we are not a big company and cannot afford a big advertising budget. But we never asked them to accept any tour fees from customers,' he said. 'The board offices are only supposed to register participants, not take any payments.' Registrar of Travel Agencies Lee Kam-chung said the tour company could only do business at the specific addresses listed on its certificate of licence issued by the TIC.
