in defense of touts

bijapuri

when I am arriving at an unlnown destination, with no prior arrangements, I pick a DRIVER (if possible) from the crowd fairlly quickly, usually based on his command of english and my instincts. Said driverimmediately and invariably shoos other touts away, and hooks me up to a hotel. Ain't nuthin wrong with that! If I don't like the hotel or him, end of deal, no harm no foul, but usually it works out.
Nowadays it's so darn easy to have some knowledge beforehand, but wasn't always like that, and many off-track places are still so.

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lookit me!!!: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bijapuri/

Utube fuzzy logic:
http://youtube.com/profile_videos?user=bijapuri&p =r

Dayglowhamster

OOOO well I had to come on this one!!

First you have to decide what a tout is. Personally I can't see any connection between someone who pretends to be a guide and tells you your hotel has burned down - and a man who asks if you want to buy a bracelet. One is lying the other selling.

The other thing that comes into the equation is how we think people should advertise their services? If approaching a tourist is wrong - what to do?? For so many there is little or no access to desktop publishing, for some even if there was - what use is a leaflet if you have no phone?

In Negombo prawn fishermen boost their income by taking tourists on catamaran trips - they neither read nor write English, but some speak 6 languages. What should they do? Do we really want a world controlled entirely by the hotels? To watch these very gentle folk approach people and get shouted at isn't all that pleasant, to see them shoved and ignored isn't much fun either. As more people travel our actions will continue to sculpt what we get to watch.

There are those who ask and a polite 'no thankyou' is enough, these are DIFFERENT in every way to those who try to intimidate. If a tourist screams in 'Klingon' (as I've seen suggested elsewhere) they just look insane. Why pay all that money and travel 1000's of miles just to alienate yourself and look crazy?

As tourist we may as well be civil - whatever we do the ones for who 'no' isn't enough will learn to ignore it, then we must escalate our actions in order to make them go - where does it end? Of course added in with this is the FACT we don't know who would leave with just a 'no thankyou ' unless we try it first.

there's a row of jewelery shops in Colombo. Outside every someone stands to 'pester ' people passing to come in. There are no 'whites' I'm told it's always been done this way. People doing business their way in their country - are they touts too?

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Alan D

Me too!!!! You knew I would!

What is a tout? Well I don't think that someone who is in business and is offering goods or a service is a tout. They can be damn persistent at times in their eagerness to do business but I find these guys sense whether you're interested or not and generally give up fairly quickly. There's never any need to be verbally abusive or physically violent - a polite no thanks generally works. If they persist in following me around I generally stop and tell them more firmly that I'm not interested.

Is an auto rickshaw or taxi driver a tout? Sometimes and sometimes not. Almost never, once you are out of the main tourist areas. He can be a tout for a hotel or a shop where he will get commission if he delivers you to the door.

Are would be guides touts? Again I don't think so. They're generally locals who have to varying degrees a command of some foreign language and to varying degrees a knowledge of the subject. We had a great guide in Bundi one time, an ex Indian Airforce officer who really knew his town and made our day.

The worst touts are the kind of guys who have been working the scam outside New Delhi Railway Station for years, although Indian Railways now has a few undercover people trying to counter this. The scam involves misinforming or telling lies and taking people to dodgy tourist agencies across the road. And of course the taxi drivers at New Delhi Airport who are working on a commission basis for hotels and tourist agencies. These people really mess new arrivals around.

Do touts have a use? The answer probably is for some people sometimes. I've never had the need to use them - generally, with the organisational skill of my wife Caroline, we've got our bus or train tickets and made our choice of hotel.

In recent years we've travelled in parts of India like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya where the tout practically doesn't exist.

So my advice to those who don't enjoy being hassled is to spend less time in the tourist hotspots. See the sights by all means but then breakaway from the tourist trail. It's a completely different experience.

By the way bijapuri - I don't think you'll need your lathi where you're going next month!

beach

The TV advertisements pushed into our eyes and ears are nothing but touting. Those tons of unsolicited emails, the popups and the telemarketing calls are all technology powered touting. We learned to live with it. It is much more intruding and rude than a poor girl tries to sell seashells to you at a beach.

Why a country like India (or Srilanka ) encourage western tourists?

The primary aim is definitely not to enhance the western population’s sociology and geographical knowledge! Nor to project its own heritage to the world. It’s for the benefit of there own economies (read as the well being of its people). Economy means not a couple of dozens of hotel chains and tour operators. The money you spend locally means a lot to those who lives in the margins of such countries. After all you are going to a place where they live. I think it’s a fare give and take. You get what you want. They get what they need.



Each society has its own way of selling.

Those who visited a Sari shop in India know this well. The man stand outside the shop calls you in. He is the front-end sales man of the shop. His ‘job’ is to call as many as prospective customers in.
You ask the counter sales man for a red cotton sari.
He suggests that a purple silk sari with motifs on it matches well with your complexion!
He then starts unroll one after another from the neatly packed shelf. You never asked for all those to spread and show.
In no time the neatly packed saris are converted into a huge heap in front of you. Remember the one you’ve asked for is a red cotton sari. Now you are standing in front of a heap of expensive silk saris with color ranges from green to yellow.
You walkout saying that “I’ll comeback later (means I don’t want any of these)!”

There is nothing wrong with this scenario. This is business us usual in India. This is how that culture is.



There is a sea of difference between the touting and scam.

A scam artist has a malicious aim. - No one wants them. A pain in any society.
A tout has a sales aim- You need them and he needs you. A tourist place without touts (err. selling) is a desert with no facilities. In the hour of need an enemy next door is more useful than the friend far away!

The problem could be with the reaction.
‘I don’t want’ means ‘I may buy it, but the price is high!’ ; A clear signal for him to press harder.

In the west people are programmed to react. A ‘NO’ is expected to be spelt loud to convey the reaction. In India silence or inattention is also a form of communication.

Dayglowhamster

"The TV advertisements pushed into our eyes and ears are nothing but touting."

The problem is the word, because right or wrong TV ad's have become acceptable to us where as 'tout' has continued to mean - poor, ethnic, and dishonest. It's easy to test this theory - start a tout threat on TT and see how many people mention adverts!

Fear, difference, and culture clash (maybe the last = the first 2!) has resulted in judging all that we see with more suspicion. There are dishonest people in the west and the east, each has a different way of working. But there are honest folk too, and to judge morality by the method rather than the goal is stupid.

As for how to respond; I think 'salesmen' good and bad look for a change in a person, that they know they can influence them. It is influence not personal development that is their goal. One person can ignore and another say 'no thankyou', one can scream and another shove, or even shout in Klingnon. The salesmean still looks for the change - to look for the influence they have over another.

It should never be a fight - just 2 individuals weighing up the other. The benefit of trying to keep your own standards of respect is that you are unchanged - to the crook this is bad news, to the good guy it's returned.

The pleasure of demonstrating respect is the rewards that come from it being returned by those who are good. The crooks will move to an easier more 'moveable' target.

wonderwomanusa

Maybe to you, but I can't stand the ads and turn my TV on about 4 times a year -- that's about all I can take. I'd ALMOST prefer to talk with a Kashmiri shopkeeper than get TV ads blasted at me -- in India or in the USA.

Dayglowhamster

Fair point! )

LuAnnandJawahar

Quote:
""Each society has its own way of selling.
Those who visited a Sari shop in India know this well. The man stand outside the shop calls you in. He is the front-end sales man of the shop. His ‘job’ is to call as many as prospective customers in. ""

The tout is the guy who recognized the tourist and manipulated situation so that the tourist would happen to be walking down that street at that particular time so as to be passing in front of sari shop X and not sari shop Y and who alerted the shop X owner as to what the tourist looks like, what kind of budget they have, how long they've been in India, where they are staying, what agency they've been working with if any, what they've already bought that day, when they last changed money, and where they plan to go next. All without the tourist being aware of any of this.

The best touts are the ones you would never recognize as a tout in a million years.

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bijapuri

"By the way bijapuri - I don't think you'll need your lathi where you're going next month!"
yeah, useless against dacoits.

Also- I haven't watched a commercial in years on TV- TiVo is GOD!!!!

iqbal

Very interesting thread.

tout To solicit customers, votes, or patronage, especially in a brazen way.

Beach, I like your idea of technology based corporate touting v. the individual touting of goods and services in India.

"Minority Report" style real-time, targeted advertisements are becoming more of a reality every day. I would not go as far as the main character in the film and have my eyeballs swapped to fool the biometric sensors, but the point is that personal and disruptive ads are intolerable to many no matter what the delivery mechanism. In the movie, of course, he has other problems and the vast majority have become desensitized to the ads.

However, I think part of the difference between the two is in our ability to counter the corporate touting with our own technology -- email filters, Tivo, caller ID, etc. I can effectively shut out/off the touts and not be bothered. I pull the email, televsion show, and choose who I want to talk to on the telephone. Pull v. push makes all the difference. I am not a big fan of television, but in some cases the television advertisements are entertaining (often better than the shows). To the vast majority, this exchange is sufficient.

Primarily I think the up-front and personal touting in India illicits an emotional reaction in many that is far more powerful than technology based touts (with the occassional exception like the recent nut-job that telephoned and threatened to kill employees of an email marketing company). Ulitmately cultural norms vary so cultural awareness and perhaps some coping strategies are needed.

Cheers.

steven_ber

Wow DGH, poor, ethnic, and dishonest.

Dishonest maybe, poor - the worst I've had has been from 'well off' locals, ethnic - not quite sure where this word fits in here, I feel sure your not suggesting it's a colour thing, that aside, most of the people we would call touts are locals, in Delhi or in London.

The worst I ever come across was a londoner who was demanding £500 for a £40 Cup Final ticket......

I would have liked to have a lathi stick with me that day.

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Dayglowhamster

- clumsy wording. I was talking perception NOT reality, I've now burped after finishing the last of my foot!

Watson

I really enjoy a good sale confrontation at times and hey it's part of the game and can be quite entertaining. One thing I can't handle is getting off a train, bus or ending up somewher in a city and having a barrage of 10 or so "touts" all pushing and shoving to get you here or there. In the end I guess it's the bad experiences and vibes that a lot of us remember. There have been quite a few nice ones though as well and so in the end I guess it all comes down to the way you're feeling at the moment and how you look at it from your very own personal viewpoint. In my opinion there is no point in generalizing about this or that. It all comes down to the situation and the person that is "touting" you. There are cool and nasty touts. It all depends on the person and how that person is doing it.

SHIMLA

Advertising is certainly not touting. It is a reminder. Nobody is pressurising you to buy.

Without advertising / publicity, how would you be aware of the existence of a product / service ?

Touting is persistent selling, and neither advertising nor publicity falls within this definition.

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Colin

This is a C&P from an eMail I sent to a mate yesterday. I have cleaned it up a bit but you will get the gist and if this is not persistent, what is?

F*****n' channel nine really gives me the s***s. I thought I would watch
a bit of the one dayer today but the bloody advertisements they stack on
after every over started to really get up my nose. They eventually flick
back to the cricket and you get some moron trying to sell you some
bloody CD of something. When you get to watch the cricket itself all the
players are dressed like clowns, plastered with advertising and crap.
The game itself is just an excuse to ram yet another Kentucky Flied
Rabbit (or similar) down your throat....

Two overs and I gave up.

It was an Australia/Zimbabwe game, we won despite the advertising and me not watching...