It's my 40th day as a tour guide on Synotrip and Synotrip has already brought me 2 tours without even asking for any money.

I used to be a tour guide working for Lijiang CITS. With a daily salary of RMB25, and nearly no payment at all in the winter, as very few tourists come in the winter, it was so hard to make a living!

In many Asian countries, tour guides make money from shopping commissions and tourists tips because we get very little pay from the travel agency. Sometimes we even have to give money to the travel agency in order to buy tourists! I hated being a shopping guide! But it's impossible to live solely on tips..

Suppose you book a tour in an agency in Paris at a very high price, then the agency in Paris pays an agency in Beijing, then the agency in Beijing pays an agency in Kunming, then the agency in Kunming pays an agency in Lijiang, then...finally...the Lijiang agency pays nothing to the tour guide! Most of your money ends up in the pockets of middlemen, while the tour guide who does the work for you gets hardly anything. Unfair isn't it? So stop being a silly tourist, contact a tour guide directly from Synotrip!