Vietnamese Tourist Guide

In one of the recent post of travel magazine, it was said that most of Vietnamese tour guide is cheating on you (or maybe to the tour travel agent where they are working). They make a living from hard income (salary) and soft income (tips). Their hard income is ranging between 0 (yes, zero) to 200 USD per month. While their soft income can be something like 1000 USD per week. The way they making money is either from bringing you to certain hotel - If a hotel actually cost only $10, if you got the offer from tour guide, the price might become $20, $30 or even $40 - or to offer you to go to certain restaurant or souvenir shops, where they gonna get tips from every money you spent - and the worst is by offering you to go in different way from what is scheduled in the tour booklet. They going to say the booklet is boring, and he knows a better way to see the country better. Thus he saved the money to buy entrance fee to certain tourist place and only bringing you to the free one.

It's actually normal thing in every tourism related industry. But sometime, they might hit you (and hit you hard) because they always think tourist comes and go. Never appear on their mind, tourists inform each other. So be careful. They also have preference in term of people they like to guide. American is their most favourite tourist because they are always giving you tip. Maybe because in the US, everyone tips everyone. Japanese is the second on the list. While most european country and non-famous asian tourists are something they avoid to go with.

That's why beside being careful, also bargain, bargain and bargain for everything. And when you do so, please smile and do it jokingly. They got less offended just in case the price is fixed (which is not most of the case).