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By Kahon Chan in Hong Kongkahon@chinadailyhk.迷你倉出租comThe government will impose greater supervision on troublemakers in the travel industry through the establishment of a new regulatory regime and the requirement of guarantee money. The details were spelt out in a document presented to the Legislative Council (LegCo) on Monday.The new regime requires operators of inbound tour groups from the mainland to pay an HK$800,000 deposit to keep their licenses and raise registration fees per tour group to reinforce the message that troublemakers will be monitored more closely, said a government source.Travel agencies in the city are currently licensed by the government, but are guided and regulated by the Travel Industry Council (TIC), essentially a trade organization. The TIC also issues licenses to tour guides and escorts.A spate of mishaps involving mainland tour groups — such as a viral video showing tourists being bullied by a guide for spending too little at shopping spots — prompted the call to create an independent watchdog.Two years after the first round of consultation, the government finally revealed details of the new regulations to LegCo.The new body, the Travel Industry Authority (TIA), is expected to take over all regulatory and licensing functions from the TIC in late 2015 and inherit most guidelines from the latter, with certain exceptions.For example, all travel agencies will be classified as operators of “mainland inbound tour group business” if they arrange catered meals, shopping trips or local transportation for two or more mainland visitors “as a group”.They will need to deposit HK$800,000 in order to renew their licenses with the new regulator.As long as existing licensees ignore all tour groups from the mainland, they will be waived from the deposit in future renewals. The deposit policy had been deemed unfair by the i儲存倉dustry during earlier negotiations as troublemakers are only a minority.But a government source said the higher deposit required for mainland tour operators was to highlight a message that the bigger effort will be made to supervise the biggest troublemakers.Major mainland tour operators should be able to afford the deposit, he said, because of their “decent profits”. Agencies that only occasionally receive mainland tours should evaluate whether they want the added cost burden.Alternative suggestions are still welcome, the paper stated, but effectiveness must not be sacrificed.The TIA will receive one-off funding from the government though sources refused to specify the amount. It will recover its expenses from license fees and customer levies in the long run, but the current fee levels are deemed too low for that purpose.An “unreasonably low” registration fee of HK$20 charged for each inbound tour, for instance, was proposed to increase to HK$200 once the TIA launches.The source explained that the current regulator only earns 10 percent of its revenues from mainland inbound groups, but spends 39 percent of its expenses supervising mainland tour operators.Not only will the fee hike recover some of the regulatory costs, the source said, it was also a matter of fairness for mainland visitors to ensure their operators comply with the rules.The future role of the TIC remains uncertain. The trade organization has agreed to take up four public functions, such as the administration of exams for escorts and guides, but the source said the council shall evaluate its check-and-balance system if it wishes to receive taxpayer’s money from the new statutory regulator, the TIA.Legislation for the new regulatory regime is expected to be submitted to lawmakers during 2014 and the system may come into effect by late 2015.InsideTo the point, page 9迷你倉沙田