From March 1, the just-promulgated Yunnan Tourism Regulations of Lijiang City (hereinafter referred to as the "Regulations"), which stipulate that in the future, those who enter undeveloped areas without authorization and are trapped will bear the cost of rescue.
It is understood that the Regulations include a total of 38 articles in six chapters, including general provisions, tourism planning and promotion, tourism operation and service, tourism supervision and management, legal liability, and supplementary provisions. Among them, many contents have particularly attracted the attention of tourism industry insiders.
The "Regulations" point out that if tourists do not comply with the provisions of scenic spots (points) and enter undeveloped or unopened areas without authorization and fall into difficulties or dangerous situations and need rescue, after the relevant organizations and institutions complete the rescue, the organizers of tourism activities and the rescued persons shall undertake the corresponding rescue use.
In particular, the "Yunnan Release" marked the key points in the announcement
In addition, the Regulations also point out that travel agencies shall organize and receive tourists and shall not designate specific shopping places. Upon mutual agreement or at the request of the tourist, and without affecting the itinerary of other tourists, the tourist may be arranged to make voluntary shopping. Moreover, scenic spots (points) must not bundle tickets with tour services, entertainment services, insurance, etc., and scenic spots (points) that implement government guidance price management shall strictly implement the preferential ticket reduction and reduction policy.
Paid rescue has gradually become the norm
In recent years, with the rise of outdoor adventure sports, there have been frequent incidents of "donkey friends" entering the forbidden area without authorization, bringing huge safety risks and economic burdens to the local area. Outdoor adventure rescue should be "paid" by institutions or individuals, which has become a hot topic in society.
For example, according to the statistics of Huangshan Mountain Scenic Area, in 2014, the Huangshan Mountain Scenic Area blocked and investigated 50 batches of 262 people in the undeveloped open area of the scenic spot, blocked and investigated 24 batches of 193 people in 2015, and 24 batches of 212 people in 2016... During this period, the annual rescue volume of scenic spots was about 400 cases, of which general assistance accounted for about 75%, and about 25% of large or serious injuries and illnesses. The annual direct cost expenditure is as little as hundreds of thousands of yuan and as much as millions of yuan, which is basically borne by the scenic spot.
"The lives of the donkeys waiting for rescue are precious, and the lives of rescuers are equally precious. A large number of rescue workers and police officers are risking their lives to enter the danger area to search for donkey friends, and their efforts also need to be respected. Lawyer Wang Xinnian, director of Sichuan Xinnian Law Firm, believes that at present, many scenic spots in China have implemented free rescue, and in many cases, rescue resources have been wasted. At present, most scenic spots have not established a paid rescue system, and the biggest concern is that they are afraid of being accused of violating the humanitarian spirit of paid rescue, and in fact, there is no clear distinction between paid rescue and free rescue.
In this context, as early as Lijiang, a number of scenic spots have launched paid rescue measures, and in 2018, the Huangshan Scenic Area piloted paid rescue and formulated the first normative document of the domestic paid rescue system. In Sichuan, Daocheng Aden Scenic Area and Siguniang Mountain Scenic Area announced the implementation of paid rescue in August and September 2018, respectively.
Siguniang Mountain is yearning for many outdoor enthusiasts
How is paid assistance calculated? According to the regulations of the Siguniang Mountain Scenic Area, any group or individual who enters the Siguniang Mountain Scenic Area without authorization and needs rescue in a dangerous situation, or who illegally carries out mountain outdoor sports projects such as mountaineering, hiking, rock climbing and other mountain outdoor sports in the scenic spot and needs to be rescued, the costs incurred in the rescue need to be paid by themselves. The definition of Huangshan is: paid rescue refers to tourists who do not comply with the regulations on the tourism and scenic spots of Huangshan City, enter undeveloped and unopened areas without authorization and fall into a state of distress or danger, according to the relevant regulations, the territorial government shall organize the implementation of rescue. However, after the completion of the rescue, the organizer of the tourism activity and the rescued person shall bear the corresponding rescue costs.
That is to say, when donkey friends travel in outdoor scenic spots, they must abide by the regulations of the scenic spots, and if they enter the "forbidden area" exploration or wild tour in undeveloped and unopened areas, the resulting rescue costs need to be borne by themselves.
In June 2021, Huangshan City drafted the Guiding Opinions on Paid Rescue of Mountain-type Scenic Spots in Huangshan City (hereinafter referred to as the "Opinions"), which intends to expand the scope of paid rescue from the Huangshan Scenic Area (referred to as the Huangshan Scenic Area) to the entire mountain-type scenic spot. It also details the cost items, review process and legal liabilities of paid rescue.
According to a Report by Xinhuanet in June 2021, nearly a year after the implementation of the paid rescue measures, the number of illegal expedition "donkey friends" blocked and investigated and punished in the Huangshan Scenic area dropped significantly, to 3 batches of 41 people.
How the rescue cost criteria are defined
Although paid rescue has been "applauded" by netizens on social platforms, a poll on paid rescue on Weibo showed that more than 92% of the nearly 7,000 participants were supportive, and more than 1/4 of them also "recommended national promotion".
But there are also concerns about the standard of rescue costs? The rescue will consume considerable manpower and material resources, will it produce "sky-high rescue fees"?
In this regard, Daocheng Aden is "clearly marked" according to the search and rescue route: Aden Village, Yeerhong Village to Kanggu Gongga Galaxy Area, the search and rescue cost is calculated from 15,000 yuan, and the search and rescue cost of the other four routes is 20,000 yuan.
Rescuers carry out rescues in Aden
More scenic spots take the form of after-the-fact calculation. For example, in the Guiding Opinions on Paid Rescue in Mountain-type Scenic Spots in Huangshan City, it is stipulated that the labor costs of rescuers shall be determined according to their wages and actual rescue time; the territorial government will pursue compensation according to law for the organizers and rescuees of tourism activities who do not pay paid rescue expenses without objection; the payment of paid rescue expenses by tourism activity organizers and rescuees does not exempt them from the legal liability they should bear for entering undeveloped and open areas without authorization.
On June 1, 2019, the first paid rescue case occurred in the Huangshan Mountain Scenic Area. On the same day, the command center of the Huangshan Mountain Scenic Area Public Security Bureau received an alarm, saying that the tourist Wang Moumou was suspected of being trapped in the CiguangGe area of the Huangshan Mountain Scenic Area and requested rescue.
After receiving the instruction, the Huangshan Scenic Area Rescue Brigade launched a rescue plan, coordinated the scenic spot public security bureau to use technical means to initially determine the area where Wang Moumou was trapped. At the same time, organize comprehensive management, fire fighting, public security, fire prevention and other relevant personnel to carry out searches.
At about 15:00, Wang Moumou was found on the east slope of the scenic cinnabar peak, and his location was surrounded by nearly vertical cliffs, and the ridge was smooth, and there was no excessive focus point, and Wang Moumou under the cliff could not go up and down, and the dilemma was also greatly increased.
Rescuers carried out rescues on the cliffs
It was not until 20:33 that Wang moumou was successfully rescued. From receiving the police to the safe descent of the personnel, the entire rescue process took more than 7 hours.
Wang Moumou later admitted that he passed through the barbed wire fence near the box office of Ciguang Pavilion and directly entered the undeveloped open area without purchasing tickets, so the Huangshan Scenic Area decided to recover the costs incurred in the rescue. In this rescue, a total of 31 people were dispatched locally, and the cumulative cost of rescue was 15227 yuan, of which 3206 yuan was paid for rescue, which was borne by the party Wang Moumou.
This cost includes the labor costs, transportation costs and logistics support costs of rescue personnel, and the calculation process is clearly marked on the official website of the Huangshan Mountain Scenic Area Management Committee. Among them, the labor fee of 1632 yuan is based on the average annual wage of public management, social security and social organization industries in urban non-private units in Anhui Province in 2017÷ 365 days × weekends 2 times the wage× the number of people involved in the rescue.
It is worth mentioning that in this rescue, 27 staff members of the scenic spot management committee paid labor, but did not charge labor fees, and only calculated the costs of 4 non-management committee staff involved in the rescue.
The Siguniang Mountain Scenic Area also clearly stipulates that the paid rescue costs include labor services, pre-hospital treatment and medical expenses, diagnosis and treatment costs, transportation, horses, accident insurance, logistics support, and the introduction of third-party rescue forces in the rescue process.
In August 2019, the Siguniang Mountain Scenic Area issued the first paid rescue ticket. A tourist, Zhou Mou, in the early morning, took advantage of the fact that the scenic management personnel had not yet taken up their posts, climbed over the fence, entered the scenic spot and began to climb. Later, due to a fall, he could not contact his family, and his family called the police. The rescue team immediately launched a rescue, and it took 36 hours to find Zhou Mou, who was already unconscious, and take him to the hospital.
Rescuers took Zhou down the mountain
Afterwards, the scenic spot instructed it to bear the cost of 3,000 yuan incurred in the rescue operation. It is worth noting that Zhou also has to pay an administrative penalty fine of 2,000 yuan. This means that tourists who enter scenic spots in violation of the law also need to bear certain legal responsibilities.
As Cheng Guanghua, member of the Party Working Committee and deputy director of the Management Committee of the Huangshan Scenic Area, said in an interview with Xinhua Net, "The more important purpose is to effectively curb tourism or adventure behavior that enters the undeveloped and open areas of the scenic spot without authorization, better safeguard the safety of tourists' lives and property and the safety of the ecological resources of the scenic spot, and invest limited rescue forces and funds in the protection of regular tour routes."
Wang Fei, deputy chief of the regulation section of the Daocheng Aden Administration, also mentioned in an interview that the rescue will consider the coexistence of paid search and rescue and humanitarian rescue, mainly through charging to deter and warn illegal crossers. He said that paid search and rescue takes first payment and then search and rescue, but if the other party abandons the paid search and rescue, out of respect for life, the scenic spot will still search and rescue the illegal crossers, but the scope is limited to the nature reserve.
However, if tourists refuse to pay for rescue, they will not only be blacklisted in the Daocheng Aden scenic spot, but may also be reported to the higher authorities and punished on a larger scale.
Regarding the charging of paid rescue, some insiders also pointed out that in the process of paid rescue, it should be noted that the standard of rescue fees must be specific and clear and operable. Paid rescue fees can only be public welfare standards, whether it is public rescue or private rescue, it is not suitable for profit-making purposes.
In an interview with China Philanthropist, the captain of the Jiujiang Blue Sky Rescue Team, Zhonghua also agreed that paid rescue should be divided into two. At the management level of scenic spots, after the introduction of the paid rescue method, it did play a certain warning role for some people who did not have the ability to explore but wanted to take risks, "at least it sounded a wake-up call to those who took risks recklessly, and what kind of consequences would be caused by such risks, they would have a prejudgment in their hearts." ”
It should be clear that tourists are greedy for small and cheap, and pursue a sense of adventure that "does not go the ordinary way", they should realize the serious consequences of these illegal trespasses on their own safety. Whether the rescue is charged or not, it means that the danger has already occurred, and tourists should be in awe of nature and have more awareness of safe tourism, which can not only ensure their own safety, but also reduce economic losses, and will not bring rescuers into danger.