As many as 170 people in a tour group from Northeast China's Jilin Province were stranded in Hong Kong recently because their visas for Taiwan had not been received, according to the South China Morning Post based in Hong Kong. They refused to leave Lok Ma Chau, one of the control points located inside the frontier closed area in Hong Kong. They staged protests at first, but after two nights they finally accepted compensation. The whole tour group numbered 480, and it remains unknown why some people received a visa and others not.

Infinitus, a direct sales health-food company and a subsidiary of the Lee Kum Kee Health Products Group, was the organizer of this tour. Because the Lee Kum Kee Health Products Group is a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Lee Kum Kee Group, many of the stranded tourists from the Chinese mainland shouted in Lok Ma Chau that "Hong Kong travel agencies are deceptive!"

While the Hong Kong side rapidly distanced themselves from this incident, Joseph Tung Yiu-chung, executive director of the Hong Kong Travel Industry Council, said that the Hong Kong side had no role but only to provide assistance, claiming it is the mainland side that helped tourists to apply for the visa. 

Also, the Lee Kum Kee Health Products Group said that the tour had nothing to do with the company.

Thankfully, this incident hasn't triggered another round of quarrels between the mainland and Hong Kong. It is not the first incident that involves mainland tourists and Hong Kong agencies. But it might be the first case where both Hongkongers and mainlanders looked for resolution straightaway instead of escalating the incident.

Obviously, just like in the previous cases, neither mainland tourists nor Hong Kong management agencies should be blamed in this incident. Instead we should single out individual cases of malfeasance. 

After going through several disputes, people finally treat the incidents rationally and have realized the deep root of the repeated incidents is the lack of normative and cooperative regulations instead of the gap between mainlanders and Hongkongers.

Years ago, due to the shortage of communication channels between ordinary mainlanders and ordinary Hongkongers, both sides had a decent impression of each other, which papered over the lack of rules and regulations. As the mainland gets richer and more tourists visit Hong Kong, these drawbacks have been laid bare. However, some people seized this opportunity to make trouble in the relationship between the mainland and Hong Kong. Coupled with agitations from some politicians with ulterior motives, these real drawbacks have been ignored. 

Without completely eliminating these drawbacks, lack of rules and regulations will stay a cancer of the Chinese mainlanders' traveling to Hong Kong and stand in the way of the development of the relationship between the mainland and Hong Kong. 

After this travel fiasco, Hong Kong travel agencies could be asked to ensure that mainlanders have the visa to a third destination or have necessary documents, which can be seen as an important step forward. Protective measures should be taken to guard against possible trouble. And the qualifications of the travel agencies and tour conductors should be strictly supervised.

To comb out the repeated incidents, the best way out is to forget the differences between the mainland and Hong Kong, and just join together to resolve the problem and find out the deep-rooted hidden drawbacks. As long as we can do like that, we can say goodbye to these repeated troubles.

The author is a PhD candidate in the Department of Social Sciences at Fudan University.

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