Blog 2: Rhetorical Analysis

Courtesy of www.chinahotelsreservation.com/hongkong_travel

    Do to the fact that I am a Tourism Management Major, I am assigned to read a lot of newspaper or online articles about the tourism industry. Within the last decade, the spike of international travel was ignited, therefore we study much more United States tourism, but we also do a bit of research on international tourism.

    In my Quality Service Management class we were assigned to read an article about the new system of tour guides that the Travel Council of Hong Kong was implementing. The name of the article is Hong Kong tourism cracks down on tour guides. The tour guides in Hong Kong had no special certifications or licenses so there was no way to police what type of service they were providing. Tour guides were bringing tourists to their own communities and harassing members of the group when they did not purchase jewelry and souvenirs from their community. The Travel Council has come up with guidelines and rules, this is a way of controlling how safe using a tour guide is and to guarantee quality service.  The system they will be executing is a demerit system and all tours guides must be licensed. When a tour guide has received 30 demerits his license will be suspended.  The punishments will be worse if the actions continue, ultimately with the revoking of licenses.

    I believe the reason for the piece is because so many people already have the negative image of traveling international travel. This is do in part to people making movies such as “Hostel” and “Taken” as well as people having bad experiences such as those spoken about in the article.  While I am not familiar with the author, it is a credible source. It is from a journal for the tourism industry called The Standard. They would not publish things that are not credible. The call to write is definitely workplace. This is so useful for members within the tourism industry. This will affect travel agents, to students, to employers. The new system will make it more inviting of tourist to visit Hong Kong. The writer definitely makes it clear that there was a problem and that the Travel Council is taking means to secure it. I am not sure if the writer is taking a position in the matter. They might be neutral. I really like the way the author presents the significance of the issue. It is very indirectly. He explains what is going on in Hong Kong; the harassing and scamming of tourists, and lets the reader realize that it is wrong and needs to be fixed. I believe the purpose of the article is to assure people that it will be a safer environment now in Hong Kong when it comes to tour guides. Like I stated earlier, I believe the author; Thomas Steinmintz, call to write was the workplace. This does not mean that the readers are only using this for work purposes. Many travelers will now feel safe traveling to Hong Kong knowing that there is one large city they will not be worried of getting scammed. The author really wants the reader to trust that he is providing them will real and reliable facts. I believe the language was very professional. This is an article in a tourism Journal, therefore it will be used academically on top of all those other reasons. The writer’s word usage promotes that the reader should have a little knowledge of tourism and traveling.

    I believe the author got his point across very well. I think something that would add to his article would be an interview from a member on the Travel Council on how these changes will affect the tourism in Hong Kong. This would be a reassuring factor for the people once again.