Yeah, I know. Surprise, surprise.
Headline in the China Post: 50,000 people vie for tour guide license to host mainland visitors
Sounds like China Fever. All those folks wanna get in on all those tourist dollars. Nothing wrong with that.
But wait, the China Post forgot to inform us there’s something else explaining the increased number of people taking the tour guide tests. A Taipei Times story discusses expectations of future Chinese tourists, but mentions something else, too:
Relaxed qualification requirements for tour guide licenses led to a record 50,000-plus applicants sitting this year’s tour guide exam, held nationwide at 13 venues on Saturday and yesterday.
[…]
Unlike previous years, where applicants needed a college diploma or to have graduated from high-school with at least one year of experience in the travel industry, this year the candidates could apply for the test so long as they had a high school diploma.
Ah-ha. Econ 201 time. If the price of a commodity goes down, the quantity demanded goes up if all other things are equal. In this case, the price of a tour guide license went down (in the sense that it became easier to apply for the license). So yes, one would expect the number of applicants to increase.
We see now that there are really two factors here driving the increased number of applicants: relaxed license requirements AND expectations of job growth in the tourist industry. The Taipei Times simply gave the reader a more balanced picture of the facts here.