Mainland travel agencies suspended for running cross-boundary tours

Two Guangdong cities have ordered the suspension of two travel agencies that caused a Macau resident to come into contact with an asymptomatic Covid-19 patient from Guangzhou.
Between March and May this year, Beijing ordered the suspension of cross-boundary group tours across the country, meaning that mainland travel agencies could not operate tours catering to Macau residents.
However, it was discovered that the Zhuhai Airlines International Travel Agency and the Qingyuan City Happy Holiday Travel Agency (Xuri Branch) had violated the order by taking 28 residents from Macau for group tours.
One of the Macau residents, when touring an attraction in Qingyuan City in the northern part of Guangdong, shared travel routes with an asymptomatic patient from Guangzhou.
This has necessitated the Macau resident’s mandatory quarantine back in Macau. The other members of the group were also required to self-monitor for symptoms.
The mainland authorities also discovered that the two agencies took both mainland and Macau residents in the same tour coach, “[presenting] risks to the disease control and prevention work and causing a public health and tourism [incident],” the two governments noted in a statement.
In response to the violations, the authorities have ordered the two travel agencies to close for two months. AL