A Beijing resident, surnamed Wang, traveled to Dubai with five friends last year.
While negotiating the trip in a branch of Zhongguang United International Travel Agency, Wang was told each person had to pay a deposit of 60-thousand yuan.
"According to the agency, they are afraid that we may cause troubles abroad or we may not return to China. We're sure that we are coming back so we give them the money without further concerns."
However, a month after returning home, Wang and his friends still haven't got their deposits back.
According to Beijing's tourism commission, it has received complaints from more than 380 tourists like Wang, involving more than 20-million yuan, or about 3-million US dollars.
The tourism commission has ordered the travel agency to raise money to pay the customers back.
Meantime, the agency's outbound travel business has been suspended.
The practice of leaving large deposits when booking overseas trips is common in China. The purpose is to prevent Chinese citizens from overstaying in certain countries or regions.
But there is much grey area regarding the regulation of this practice.
Travel agencies decide how much to charge, and they decide which customers need to pay.
Payments differ depending on the destinations and the financial conditions of the tourists.
Zhong Hui is the CEO of China Environment International Travel Service Corporation.
"In general, the deposit for short-distance trips is between 30 to 50 thousand yuan, such as South Korea and Japan. For long-distance trips, like Europe, America and Australia, it varies from 50 to 80 thousand yuan."
Experts are expressing concern over the handling of these large sums of money.
Liu Simin is a researcher in tourism from the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
"If they just put the money in the bank, even if only for three months, the interests produced could be ignored. But once the money is used to invest in the stock market, or loan to others, they may gain a considerable profit in a short period."
In light of this, some big travel agencies have introduced banks as a third party to safeguard the money. Tourists don't have to make the deposits with travel agencies.
Experts are also calling for the government to address the issue and publish new regulations to protect tourists' deposits with travel agencies.
For CRI, I'm Luo Wen.
