It had all the volatile ingredients for a public-order catastrophe. More than 80 weary tourists, a long and uncomfortable coach journey, an unco-operative tour guide and a shockingly inappropriate place to spend the night.
When a group of mainland tourists expecting to be taken to a three-star, downtown hotel were instead transported to a children's holiday camp in a far-flung, rural corner of Hong Kong, however, they reacted with calm dignity and guile.
In a 15-hour stand-off, they turned the tables on the tour company, won an immediate compensation payout and set off an investigation that could lead to the tour company having its operating licence revoked if it is found to be to blame. In the process, they also sent a clear message to Hong Kong's hospitality industry: mainland visitors are increasingly aware of their rights and how to react when people treat them shoddily or unfairly.
The showdown at the Po Lueng Kuk's Pak Tam Chung holiday camp began on November 11, when a group of visitors from Xian and Anhui who had paid 2,600 yuan each for a five-day, four-night stay in Hong Kong were taken to their accommodation at 9pm after a first day spent sightseeing around the city.
It was dark as their coaches trundled up to the entrance of the holiday camp, and the visitors may not have seen the large cardboard figures of children in a toy car at the entrance to the camp that gave the first indication of the nature of the place they were booked into.
There was no room for doubt once they stepped off the coaches and saw the hostel-style dining room and basic $80-a-night rooms that Golden Bauhinia Travel had booked them into.