Last week, Taiwanese actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), also known as “Big S,” passed away suddenly from health complications caused by the flu while on a trip to Japan — a truly saddening tragedy.
A tour guide who claimed to be responsible for leading Hsu’s group lacked professional ethics by laying bare the details of Hsu’s illness and sharing photos of her sickly condition on social media, which is extremely unacceptable behavior.
Based on the tour guide’s word choice and use of simplified Chinese characters, one might infer that they are a native Chinese person who was working illegally as a driver guide — a person who acts as both the driver and tour guide for a tour group.
To provide some background, an individual representing a Taiwanese travel agency leading a tour group abroad is called a “team leader.” Team leaders are responsible for the fulfillment of a Standardized Contract for Overseas Tours (國外旅遊定型化契約) between the travel agency and the travelers. A “tour guide,” on the other hand, refers to the representative of the local travel agency who is responsible for guiding the group in the foreign country and taking them to visit tourist attractions. However, in Japan’s tourism industry — perhaps due to a shortage of local Japanese tour guides — it has long been the case that the Japanese-speaking team leader also serves as the Chinese-speaking tour guide.
It is also possible that this shortage of local Japanese tour guides has led to the situation where local unlicensed tour guides have been given unlimited space to operate. This has even allowed for driver guides to become quite popular, which poses many problems. In particular, many of the commercial vehicles used are uninspected, privately owned and uninsured. Not only does this make seeking compensation difficult in the event of a traffic accident, but it also raises potential legal issues.
The origins of unlicensed tour guides vary, and their language proficiency and adaptability to difficult situations are concerning.
When taking factors such as costs into consideration, many travelers heading to Japan skip out on travel agencies and directly opt for the illegal, one-stop service offered by unlicensed driver guides. However, lacking the legal protections of a contract makes it more likely for travel disputes to arise.
If Hsu and her family had decided to work with a legitimate Taiwanese travel agency, given their high profile, the agency likely would have assigned a tour guide with extensive crisis management experience to provide full-time service and support. Additionally, the travel agency — or even government representatives stationed in Japan — might have offered additional assistance. In that case, there might have been a different outcome.
At the very least, Hsu and her family would not have been subjected to such low-level, illegal and unethical behavior like leaking travelers’ personal information.
Lin Chih-yen is an English and Japanese-speaking tour manager and guide.
Translated by Kyra Gustavsen
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