Pilgrims Should Deal Directly With Licensed Tour Companies

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From YS ChanExactly what went wrong with the purported pilgrimage for 380 intending pilgrims stranded at KLIA recently will only be known after investigators piece together the full story.
Although many reports have labelled it as a scam, it was not a typical case where scammers disappeared together with the money.
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Five suspects, comprising a tour company owner, his wife, an agent and two employees at the agency, have been remanded for questioning.
A total of 4,683 travel agencies and tour companies are currently registered with the tourism, arts and culture ministry. Only 702 are listed under “Senarai syarikat yang mempunyai lesen perniagaan pengendalian pelancongan luar negeri bagi umrah atau ziarah”.
Those not licensed to operate such umrah and pilgrimage packages are not permitted to organise trips to the Holy Land. However, their travel agency licence allows them to be a sales agent for licensed companies that organise tours and for other service providers such as airlines and hotels.
Tour wholesalers not only appoint licensed travel and tour companies as sales agents. Some also make use of enterprising individuals freelancing in the market after they had worked in tour companies and built a sizeable customer base of their own.
To persuade and convince people into paying or investing in something substantial, the personal touch is often necessary. Recognising this as a challenging task, life insurance companies have long been paying huge commissions to their sales agents to get many people to sign up.
As imams wield considerable influence over their congregation, they have often been approached by those offering umrah tours, which can be performed any time of the year, except for the six weeks following the conclusion of the 10-day haj season.
In 2019, more than 300,000 Malaysian pilgrims went to Saudi Arabia, but the number of scams was relatively small. These mostly happened when individuals trusted by imams disappeared with payments made by intended pilgrims.
However, the latest case is intriguing as the tour company could have been swindled by a mastermind who must have been convincing that “furada” (private) visas could be obtained and a large aircraft chartered to ferry 380 passengers to and from Jeddah.
It was reported that a month earlier, the agents involved had held extravagant haj preparation courses at some expensive hotels. Were these exercises to collect the balance in payments? Without showing samples of furada visas and flight tickets, alarm bells should have been ringing.
In any case, if tour operators or travel agents have been conned, they are still legally liable even if they are not charged with criminal offences. If insufficient money or no refunds are given, victims are likely to sue them.
Under “Tour operating business and travel agency business” regulations, travel and tour companies are not permitted to deal with any illegitimate businesses. The onus is on them to verify the validity of services offered by other tour companies or wholesalers.
It was reported that several travel agencies had sold some of the ill-fated haj packages. Although they have shown care by bearing accommodation costs for the victims, this alone does not totally absolve them of blame.
As for normal tours, the public should always deal directly with reliable tour companies that organise tours, especially overseas.
Always remember that tour operators must make a reasonable profit for their endeavours and be suspicious when tours are offered cheaply.
If a local outbound tour operator is unable to pay the foreign inbound tour operator, Malaysian tourists may be held to ransom overseas on the last day until the tour group coughs up payment for all the transport and accommodation services provided, plus meals and tickets.
Do bear in mind that no individual, including licensed tourist guides or tour leaders who you have befriended, are authorised to operate any tours within or out of the country. Always deal directly with a trusted tour company that charges reasonably for their services.
To do otherwise will be inviting trouble, if not sooner, later. Some scammers win over your confidence with cheap prices and satisfactory services initially, but will strike upon receiving a much larger payment after you have gathered more people to join in.
And don’t seek or fall for special privileges or entitlements. When you consider yourself as among the lucky ones, the reverse could also happen. Riding on luck is too risky as many people would eventually run out of luck. We usually get what we deserve, not what we want. - FMT
YS Chan is a tourism trainer for travel agencies and a tourism and transport industry consultant.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.

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