Signing up with a travel agency for a mystery tour to the Xisha Islands, paying a deposit, only to encounter a typhoon and wait in Hainan for a week, with each person spending over 2,000 yuan. Upon returning, they tried to contact the outdoor company for a refund, but the company delayed returning the money. Recently, citizens including Mr. Zhu and other travelers filed complaints with the industrial and commercial authorities. The day before yesterday, there was finally a resolution — the outdoor company is willing to refund the deposits to four “travelers” and pay a certain amount of compensation, totaling 28,700 yuan.
Mr. Zhu is a self-guided travel enthusiast (commonly known as a “traveler”), who usually enjoys participating in self-guided trips, expeditions, mountain climbing, and other activities. In February this year, he saw an advertisement for a “Xisha Islands Mystery Tour” on the website of an outdoor sports company in our city. The itinerary and activity arrangements of the mystery tour greatly interested him, so he invited three other “travelers” to sign up together and signed a “Xisha Islands Scientific Expedition Activity” agreement with the outdoor company, each paying a deposit of 5,000 yuan.
“At that time, we verbally agreed to meet up in Sanya by ourselves, and the outdoor company would arrange a chartered boat to sail to the Xisha Islands,” Mr. Zhu said.
Unexpectedly, this “mystery tour” left them utterly disappointed. After arriving in Sanya, the team leader from the outdoor company and the boat captain repeatedly cited the typhoon as the reason for not arranging the sea trip. “Being unfamiliar with the place and the situation, we didn’t know what was going on, so we could only wait and see. Unexpectedly, it dragged on for a whole week,” Mr. Zhu said dejectedly.
Over the seven days, all food and accommodation expenses were out-of-pocket, with total spending nearing 10,000 yuan. Unable to bear the increasing daily costs, the travelers discussed and decided to return.
Upon returning, Mr. Zhu immediately contacted the outdoor company to request a refund. A relevant person in charge of the company said they would process the refund as soon as possible. But several months passed, and there was no sign of a refund. “I even began to suspect that the outdoor company and the boat captain colluded to scam money maliciously.”
After being refused a refund multiple times, Mr. Zhu was furious and filed a complaint with the Municipal Administration for Industry and Commerce. Mediators from the Anyang Rights Protection Studio immediately contacted the owner of the outdoor company and verified the situation. The owner admitted that the typhoon had indefinitely postponed the activity, but the company had already handed the travelers’ deposits over to the local boat captain in the Xisha Islands and had been unable to contact the captain to retrieve the money, hence having no funds to refund. “We are also victims now, so please understand our situation,” the owner said.
The mediators stated that, as operators, outdoor activity companies should provide services as agreed. In cases where weather or other force majeure factors prevent fulfillment as promised, refunding the prepayment is a reasonable demand from consumers, which outdoor companies should satisfy without using excuses to delay.
Additionally, reporters learned from a local travel agency that the Xisha Islands have not yet been opened to the public. The Hainan Tourism Bureau has already started drafting development plans for Xisha tourism, and it may be opened to the public in the second half of this year.
