I was cheated by a low-priced tour group in a live broadcast room: I was checked out of a five-star hotel halfway through my trip, and I only received 500 yuan in compensation after two months of rights protection

Selling travel products in live broadcast rooms has become very common, but on social platforms, there are many complaints about travel products in e-commerce live broadcast rooms. Problems such as product shrinkage and difficulty in verification are some of the chaos that are prone to occur in travel products in live broadcast rooms.

Live streaming has become a new traffic outlet for the tourism industry. Douyin Life Service launched a policy to support hotel and tourism businesses and launched a calendar room function; Kuaishou launched a 100-city joint cultural tourism project called "Every City Has a Hand" and reached a cooperation with Tongcheng Travel. Even New Oriental has officially entered the tourism industry and launched cultural tourism products on Dongfang.

Consumers who were "planted" while watching live broadcasts also began to book air tickets, hotels, group tours, etc. in the live broadcast room. According to official data from Douyin, the number of merchants selling wine and travel increased by nearly 7 times year-on-year in 2023, and the payment GMV increased by more than 300 times year-on-year. Among them, live broadcasts accounted for the largest proportion and grew fastest, and the payment GMV of wine and travel live broadcasts increased by more than 200 times year-on-year.

As traffic poured into the live broadcast room, various problems began to emerge.

According to The Paper, at the end of February this year, the Oriental Select Travel Package was accused of false advertising. In a 5,398 yuan "5-day, 4-night boutique small group package from Mohe to Harbin", the promised business SUV turned out to be a taxi.

This is not an isolated case. Times Finance found that on Heimao Complaints and social platforms, many consumers complained about travel products in e-commerce live broadcasts, with various problems such as mismatched goods, reduced services, and difficulty in verification.

1. The “low-price group” in the live broadcast room is unreliable

"498 yuan for any 3 of 20 domestic routes", "4-day Changbai Mountain tour, 3399 yuan for two adults and one child", "1480 yuan for a private tour to Xishuangbanna, a five-diamond Wyndham Hotel", all kinds of tourism products are active in various live broadcast rooms.

Douyin once disclosed a set of data, showing that in the first quarter of 2023, more than 400 million users with travel interests watched travel content on Douyin. The total viewing time of users on hotel and travel live broadcasts increased by 206% year-on-year throughout the year.

Guo Li is a frequent user of Douyin. In January this year, she tried to book a group tour product in the platform's live broadcast room for the first time. According to the order screenshots shown by Guo Li, she booked a "5-diamond Xishuangbanna 5-day 4-night pure play private tour" product in the live broadcast room of a Yunnan travel agency, priced at 3,988 yuan, including two adults.

"At the time, I felt that this tour group was very cost-effective, and it arranged a five-star hotel and a driver to pick up and drop off, which was very suitable for lazy people to travel." Guo Li also said that when she placed the order, the anchor in the live broadcast room promised to "stay for four consecutive nights without moving."

However, during the actual trip, Guo Li and her party found that the products and services did not match those advertised.

Guo Li told Times Finance that the hotel she checked into on the day of her arrival was not the same one that was advertised at the beginning, but considering that they were the same hotel brand, Guo Li did not investigate further. Later, on the third day, Guo Li was notified by the hotel to check out, saying that the room fee was only paid for two days.

"At that time, the hotel market in Xishuangbanna was very tight, and many hotels could not be booked late at night." After Guo Li negotiated with the hotel, travel agency staff, and Douyin, the travel agency arranged for her to stay in another hotel 10 kilometers away.

In addition, Guo Li also encountered problems such as itinerary changes and unpurchased tickets during her trip. After nearly two months of rights protection, Guo Li only received a compensation plan of 500 yuan from the platform, and the travel agency did not provide any explanation or compensation.

The products and services provided by the tour group are not what they claim to be, which is a common problem for consumers when they consume in live broadcast rooms. Hotels are particularly hard hit. A consumer told Times Finance that he ordered a Beijing four-diamond tour group in a live broadcast room in February this year. The hotel claimed that it was only six subway stops away from Tiananmen Square, but the hotel he was actually arranged to stay in was located on the sixth ring road in Beijing.

On the Heimao complaint forum, some consumers also stated that they had placed an order for a tour group in the live broadcast room. The previously promised "hot bed for two people in Snow Town" was actually a homestay one hour's drive away from Snow Town.

In addition to product shrinkage, difficulty in verification is also one of the chaos that often occurs in live broadcast travel products.

At the beginning of 2021, when travel was affected, Zhang Xin "stocked up" a 2,400 yuan 6-day tour package to Yunnan in the e-commerce live broadcast room. The anchor claimed at the time that the package was valid for two years, and if the travel reservation could not be made, a refund could be made at any time or the package would be automatically refunded upon expiration.

Later, due to the epidemic and other reasons, Zhang Xin has not arranged a trip, and the merchant said that the product has been written off and no refund can be made, but it can be extended for another 1-2 years. In January this year, when Zhang Xin contacted the merchant again to make a travel reservation, the merchant said that the product had expired and could not be fulfilled.

In April 2023, Wang Qi booked three hotel rooms in Yangshuo, Guilin, in the live broadcast room, with each room costing only 99 yuan per night. At that time, the anchor said that the reservation channel would be open in mid-April and would be available on May 1st.

When Wang Qi finally made a reservation, he found that weekends and May Day were not available, and the merchant said it was "fully booked." However, Wang Qi found that on other booking platforms, the hotel still had the same room type available for reservation during the May Day period, and the price had more than doubled. In the end, the short video platform rejected Wang Qi's request for triple compensation, and the merchant only agreed to refund the cost of one room.

2. There is no “low price” for no reason

The lack of tracking of order fulfillment, the inability to guarantee subsequent services, and the failure to supervise and hold merchants accountable are the personal experiences of many consumers after purchasing cultural and tourism products in live broadcast rooms.

"In the future, I may be more cautious when choosing to purchase travel products in live streaming rooms, because it is difficult for these platforms to conduct strong supervision of itineraries and they only provide a promotional platform," said Guo Li.

Hu Xiaoying, general manager of CRIC Culture and Tourism, pointed out to Times Finance that compared with the products previously sold by Douyin and Kuaishou, the hotel and tourism track has created higher average customer spending and profits, so these content platforms will naturally vigorously develop this sector.

For merchants and influencers, the tourism industry is easier to generate stories and content than other fields such as beauty and clothing, and provides rich cultural materials. "Last year, the popularity of Harbin Ice and Snow World and Zibo BBQ proved that such platforms have the ability to make a destination popular, thus building the confidence of hotel and travel merchants in such content platforms."

In order to attract merchants, Douyin and Kuaishou also provide policy support to hotel and tourism merchants, such as reducing and reducing rates, providing traffic resources, etc. "The traditional OTA rate is generally around 15%, but when Douyin first developed hotels, travel and destination tickets, it required merchants to charge much lower commissions than traditional OTAs, about 8% during the epidemic," said Hu Xiaoying.

However, for new platforms such as Douyin, Kuaishou, and Oriental Selection, which have a lot of traffic, it is not so easy to eat a piece of the tourism industry cake, and there are still certain competitive barriers.

Taking tour groups as an example, which test the richness of hotel and tourism resources and the ability to integrate the industrial chain, the probability of "stepping on landmines" in the Douyin and Kuaishou live broadcast rooms is relatively higher than that of traditional OTAs.

Hu Xiaoying pointed out that at present, platforms such as Douyin are not detailed enough in the segmentation and procurement of various sub-sectors of the hotel and tourism industry, which means that after the tour itinerary is sold, the platform lacks control over the implementation of each subsequent link.

Guo Li felt deeply about this. She had to deal with multiple service personnel in the process of order confirmation, hotel reservation, local car, ticket and service. "Whenever there was a problem, the response speed was very slow and the information transmission time was long."

A staff member of a travel platform also revealed to Times Finance that non-standard products represented by group tours pose a greater challenge to Douyin. There are many links in a travel group, and even products sold by some large travel agencies may be subcontracted to other suppliers at various levels, which will make it more difficult for a platform with weak resources to control.

"Take our platform as an example. In many cases, we can only guarantee that the first-hand goods are compliant. We cannot supervise how the goods are subcontracted later. After problems arise, consumers can only use evidence to protect their rights, and the probability of success is generally quite high." The above person said.

In the view of tourism practitioners, low prices are an important reason why tourism products sold on live streaming platforms are prone to problems. "Traditional OTA channel operations are quite mature, and the important factor that attracts consumers to place orders on new platforms is price," said Zhou Song, a travel agency operator.

"If the price is low, how can the merchants balance the profit? Naturally, they will find room from the consumers' shopping, accommodation and dining standards." Zhou Song pointed out that one of the keys to distinguish whether a tour group is "cheating" is to compare the price difference between the tour fee and the transportation. If the tour fee is lower than the round-trip transportation or less than 300 yuan per day after deducting the transportation fee, it is a low-quality tour group, "especially Yunnan, Hainan and Guangxi."

(Interviewees Guo Li, Zhang Xin, Wang Qi, and Zhou Song are pseudonyms)

Author: Lin Xinlin, Editor: Li Qian

Source public account: Times Finance APP (ID: tf-app), focusing on corporate financial news, produced by Times Media Group.