[Travel with me] A promise six years late was finally fulfilled

The " 2024 Angkor World Cultural Heritage Exploration " itinerary was officially launched on the travel agency's official website yesterday. I have been waiting for this day for six years.

If you really want to count it out, it’s far more than six years.

In 2014, "Angkor In-depth Guide: Temple Architecture, Myths and Legends, Art Analysis Complete Edition" was published. Before that, I spent more than three years doing field work and writing. I traveled in and out of Cambodia so frequently that even the customs officers were watching. Greeting from my passport: "You have come many times!"

I was still very young at that time, in excellent physical condition, weighed more than ten kilograms less than I do now, and had thick, black hair. Because I am young and female, I will be bullied from time to time. Although there were a lot of troubles during the process, which are inevitable risks in the field, luckily we got through them all.

During the research, I had accumulated many wishes. In those tearfully beautiful mornings, you have to wear a cold-proof jacket to walk through the forest, and break through the fog with the morning light; in the evening after the tourists disperse, the magnificent sunset quietly descends on the vast reservoir of Neak Pean, which was once As dry as a swamp, the local heritage preservation team took advantage of the floods in Indochina in 2011 to restore the reservoir built by Jayavarman VII thousands of years ago. (See my article: Bringing back the thousand-year-old reservoir of our ancestors - Cambodia challenges the preservation of the Angkor water conservancy system )

Preah VIhear, which hangs on the edge of a cliff and has a bird's eye view of the Cambodian plains, Koh Ker, which is hidden in the forest with dark willows and flowers, and Bandese, the "Cat Castle" without cats but with the majestic Thousand-Armed Avalokitesvara statue. Banteay Chhmar (Banteay Chhmar), take advantage of the slanting light of the morning sun to illuminate the Prasat Kravan (Prasat Kravan) from the doorway, and admire the majestic brick carvings covering the inner walls of the red brick pagoda (you must grasp the 2 hours in the early morning, there will be no light after that) , and countless days of walking through dense forests and tall grass, and climbing over mounds of dirt and rocks in uninhabited areas.

Back in Taiwan, I tried to make proposals to various travel agencies, hoping to create an in-depth themed tour of Angkor culture, but they were all rejected. Because the Cambodia itinerary on the market at that time was a very mature and stereotyped package, the entire industry followed that formula: a five-day itinerary, deducting two days of flying, and three or three and a half days of intensive walking around the Angkor ruins in Siem Reap. (In a very rush, 6-9 monuments can be scheduled in one day), a sunrise at Angkor Temple, a song and dance show in the evening, an optional trip to Bengmelie, an optional trip to a one or two-night massage, and then enter the shopping center and end .

The places and dreamy moments I mentioned above almost never exist in the established package itinerary.

Southeast Asia has long been ruined by (the industry) (?!)

After shooting again and again, I realized that if I want to organize a tour to go to the beautiful Angkor I have seen, it has to be "customized". All customization costs need to be re-evaluated. You need more than 15 people to decide to go, and these people have no budget considerations. Under these conditions, travel agencies in both places will be willing to spend more time and effort to inquire and estimate prices one by one. Grab a ticket and grab a tour guide.

When Cambodia’s tourism boom is booming, it’s impossible to complete the existing package itinerary. Unless the profit is high enough and the cost of early planning and communication (i.e., R&D cost) can be turned into a fixed itinerary, who has time for you to customize it?

A friend in the industry who has a good relationship with me suggested: "Your ideals are very full, but your reality is very skinny. Get a tour guide certificate, work in a travel agency, and open up your network. You may have more opportunities to do the tours you want to do, but the chances are Not really. Because trip planning, line control and team leadership are three different departments.”

Explanation of terms: The person who takes the group out is the tour guide, who must have a tour guide certificate, and is usually not responsible for the tour guide; the person who picks up the group locally is the tour guide, who must have a tour guide certificate and is responsible for the tour guide. The tour leader and tour guide in Europe and the United States is called a Through Out Guide, or Through Guide for short. One person can do all the big things. In addition, the tour days are long and the income is the highest. It is also the career goal of most tour leaders. Whether you can operate a through guide depends on local regulations. If regulations stipulate that there are local travel agencies and local tour guides, the cost structure must include fees for local travel agencies and tour guides. There is nothing wrong with such regulations. It is completely reasonable to ensure the income of the local tourism industry and the cultivation of talents, and to be hosted by those who are most familiar with local resources. Don't just look at the profit figures when doing things, only by sharing the good will last.

The most pertinent and cruelest advice I have ever heard is this: "In the tourism industry, it is not about arranging scenic spots that you think are good and worthy of recommendation, but to use the least cost to include the links that can make the most money from guests. ." The ultimate expression of this practice is the "gambling group", and the most classic one is the well-known "zero dollar group."

Tour tours in Southeast Asia have short days, low profits, and consumers’ psychological expectations that “Southeast Asia is cheap,” so they have to cut prices to compete. In principle, they are more or less like gambling tours. This is the type where you see group fares that are so low that they are only one cent more expensive than a plane ticket. Even if the itinerary seems to be packed with a lot of attractions, it is just a quick glance, and there is no leisure time for you to savor it carefully. In order to keep the tour fee as low as possible, the tour leader, tour guide, and driver do not have working fees (no salary), and their income depends entirely on the profits and tips from guests’ in-stop shopping and self-funded tours. Such poor working conditions make talented people reluctant to stay in the Southeast Asia route, and the quality and experience of the tour cannot be improved.

At the end of 2017, I prepared for the exam, obtained the team leader certificate in 2018, and completed the training, which took about eight months. When I was training, I discussed what I wanted to do with my classmates in the industry. Everyone’s reaction was: “Southeast Asia has been badly done by (the industry) for a long time.” “People who have aspirations for the tourism industry will skip Southeast Asia. "

However, Southeast Asia is so big, how can a small Taiwan ruin it? The European, American and Japanese tourists I saw in the local area (not just Cambodia), under the leadership of local professional tour guides, can go to places that I think are great at the best time and listen to detailed tour guide explanations. Why Taiwan Can't do it?

It's not that Taiwan is ruining others' business, but that Taiwan's existing industry ecosystem is ruining itself.

Hong Kong’s cultural tourism is a mature business model

Many friends think that after I wrote an "In-depth Guide to Angkor", which is known as the most detailed guide to Angkor civilization in the Chinese-speaking world, I can then make a living by leading tour groups, and even provide training courses for Cambodian tour leaders ( After all, there are so many Taiwanese tour groups going to Cambodia), and I bid farewell to the poor life of a scholar. This kind of imagination is too naive.

"Did you know that the tour leader who leads a Southeast Asian tour doesn't need to know anything?" During the tour leader training, a senior tour guide who was trained came back to make up for it (she mainly took in-band mainland tour groups, but she was determined to switch to out-band, so she came back to make up for it) trained) told me this. Taking Cambodia as an example, it is stipulated that tourist attraction guides must be local legal tour guides, so the tour leader does not need to know any professional knowledge at all.

"So it's useless no matter how much you know. Just take the leader of the Southeast Asia tour out and hand it over to the tour guide. All you have to do is serve the guests well and make them willing to buy, buy, buy. Otherwise, what are you going to make?"

But I have always disagreed with this "just enough" approach.

In 2012, my old friend @Zou Songhua, who has been working with Lonely Planet for a long time, recommended me to join LP’s author group. During those years of working with her, she was organizing "Walk in Hong Kong" with the GLO Travel team. GLO Travel has opened up the Hong Kong cultural tourism market with in-depth cultural tours and is very popular. In media interviews, GLO always advocates that "travel should not just be about eating, drinking and having fun, but should also be an opportunity to deeply understand local politics, culture, and economy. Therefore, we hope that by designing itineraries, explaining, and connecting with local people, participants can "Travelers can understand the true culture of a place." ( GLO Travel: When travel agencies can no longer organize tour groups, do they want to exit or move forward? )

I have always believed that GLO’s route is the right one. My understanding of travel has always been this way since I was a child, and I have never had any doubts. From when I used LP to travel when I was a teenager, to when I later joined the LP team, researched and wrote articles for LP, I followed the same principles and there has always been no ambiguity. I don’t understand why this principle does not exist in Taiwan’s tourism industry, cannot be done, and is not supported by the Taiwan market.

Every time I discuss these depressing phenomena with friends in the tourism industry, they often reply to me: "What you want to do is return to the essence of tourism, but this is difficult. Consumers will give up when they see the price."

Slowly, travel agencies in Hong Kong began to approach me to lead tours. Because I don’t have a Hong Kong tour leader card, they provide a tour guide, and I participate as a tour guide. From tour planning to on-site tours, I know this is not impossible.

By the end of 2018, which was also my last tour to Cambodia before the epidemic, another cultural tourism brand in Hong Kong decided that I would be in charge of the entire cultural tourism project in 2019, so I left Taiwan to prepare for further development in Hong Kong. If Hong Kong can do it, of course we should go.

The annual plan for 2019 had already been arranged and open for recruitment before I took office, so the new plan I want to make cannot be launched until 2020. It doesn’t matter, there is a lot to learn, adapt and adjust to. If I follow the pace of work, I firmly believe that my ideas will be implemented soon.

There are really many people in Hong Kong who are keen on in-depth cultural themes. Although they always tell me that their ethnic group is a super niche, they feel that Taiwan has a strong cultural atmosphere and must be better able to develop cultural tourism than Hong Kong. I shook my head. In my opinion, compared to Taiwan’s tourism market, Hong Kong’s consumers with culture and travel habits can be said to be super unrivaled in scale. Apart from anything else, in Hong Kong, traveling abroad is a necessity because city life is too stressful and you have to fly out N times a year. There are so many retired people who travel around the world with group tours every month. But this is not the case in Taiwan. It is no longer easy to go out once a year. People who are passionate about culture, history and art are so poor that they can hardly maintain their lives. The market foundations of the two places are completely different.

In the summer of 2019, the general environment changed suddenly. I resigned and returned to Taiwan in the fall. I originally wanted to continue my work experience in Hong Kong in Taiwan. I was planning everything, found a cooperative team, and was planning my itinerary. At the beginning of 2020, the epidemic hit and the world locked down.

Four years after the epidemic, everything starts over again

GLO Travel survived the epidemic by transforming itself into an online cultural lecture hall. I was also traveling around Taiwan teaching, giving lectures, curating exhibitions, writing books, and producing programs. I was exhausted from my busy schedule. The cultural tourism department where I worked in Hong Kong ended during the epidemic. The colleague who took over my job at that time also resigned not long after and immigrated to Taiwan.

However, after so many years, I have changed from an energetic young man to a tired middle-aged man with flabby muscles and frost on my temples.

In the past two years, the epidemic has gradually been lifted, but the tourism industry cannot recover so quickly. Companies are downsizing and dismantling, experienced veterans are changing careers, and industries that have ceased operation are trying to restart operations, but everything has changed. Consumer expectations have changed, the people entering the tourism industry have changed, the cost structure has changed, and the operation of the industry chain has changed. All cooperation tacit understanding must be re-cultivated, and the rules must be reinstated.

To me, this is a good phenomenon. Everyone's mentality has become "as long as there is a chance, you might as well try a new method." In April last year, I started to organize an inspection team. Because the travel warning signal in Cambodia was red, I started in Vietnam instead. There are also other partners starting from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and other places, each with different expertise, such as anthropology, cultural heritage preservation, food research, etc. Everyone works separately to accumulate experience and energy together.

However, it is still a flaw to find a travel agency to cooperate with. This is a matter of regulations. If you want to legally organize a tour, you can only cooperate with a travel agency. However, under the constraints of tourism regulations, the risks that travel agencies have to bear are very high. If you want to have an ingenious approach, you must also consider the potential risk costs. You cannot really As free and unrestrained as backpacking across the world.

I am very grateful to my partners who have worked side by side on this journey in the past few years and introduced travel agencies that also share the desire to "return to the essence of tourism."

In 2024, I will be on the road intensively, and I hope you who agree with this concept will travel with me.

Finally, I would like to thank @阿利, thank you for remembering me when I used to carry a big backpack on the road.