A person in charge of the Taihu Search and Rescue Center said yesterday that the Shanghai university student tour group involved in the incident was organized by Shanghai Strawman Travel Agency.
Strawman Travel Agency obtained its business registration and travel license in 2009, and is located on Handan Road, Hongkou District. Its business scope includes domestic travel services. However, the company’s website shows that it was formerly the Strawman Outdoor Sports Association of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and many of its guides are also university students working part-time.
Yesterday afternoon, an Early Morning Post reporter called Strawman Travel Agency but got no answer. According to its website, Strawman is neither a traditional travel agency nor an adventure-focused outdoor club. It claims: “We don’t go to overcrowded scenic spots; we don’t sleep in boring hotel doubles; we don’t arrange return transportation, and tourists continue new explorations after disbanding locally...”
Strawman’s predecessor was the Strawman Outdoor Sports Association of Shanghai University of Finance and Economics. It now shares online platforms and travel information with university clubs and has launched class trips and other programs targeting university students. The guide profiles on the company’s website also show that many guides are university students working part-time. This helps reduce costs on one hand, and on the other, highlights the difference of this travel model from conventional ones—focusing on making friends.
Among the class trips recently launched by the company, only one is related to Taihu Sanshan Island, namely “Top Secret Mission: Qionglu Mountain & Sanshan Island,” priced at 350 yuan per person, with a complimentary travel accident insurance included.
Regarding the frequent organization of “non-traditional, unconventional” travel routes by Strawman Travel Agency, Yang Fan, head of the Market Management Division of the Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration, said yesterday, “Tour routes organized by travel agencies must have absolute safety guarantees, and safety should be properly and adequately assessed. Risks should be controllable, and management should be strengthened. In the future, tourism authorities will also make requirements and reminders to travel agencies in these aspects.”
Xiao Li, an experienced backpacker, said yesterday that Strawman is not very well-known among Shanghai outdoor clubs and mainly caters to university students. Currently, in similar travel projects, some guides indeed do not have professional tour guide qualifications, but are just experienced backpackers, who may not perform as well as those from professional travel agencies in terms of certain precautions. The guide fees for these part-timers are also lower than those of full-time guides, often just over 100 yuan per day.
A student from Jiao Tong University who was injured in this tragedy said that the trip was organized by the class itself, aiming to strengthen relationships among classmates, and no teacher was leading the group.