Hi Gwenaelleauxerre,
Thank you very much for your review. Please allow us to explain each point as follow:
1. Everything is biased - In Hong Kong Free Tours, we do allow our guide to express his own view during the tour so it is possible that you MIGHT meet a guide who is more biased than another. However, this is preciously the beauty of the tour because you interact directly with the local and there is no pre-existing view from the company.
Having said that, I am very surprised to hear this comment for Derek because he is more objective than most of our guides we had. For example, after he talks about Tiananmen Square incident, he talks about the democracy in the US and asks the guests if they think democracy works better there (hinting there is no best system in the world). There are a few more examples but I don't want to list them all here.
2. Differences between HK and China - For completeness, the specific topic is about the history of Hong Kong people's identity: we have been colonized by the British but we are not recognized as British. Now that Hong Kong returns to China but we don't feel being a Chinese. As a result, who exactly are we? Unfortunately I think you might have missed this point because you only cited a racial comment.
3. We saw nothing from HK - The tour is divided into two parts: first part is about the political and history of HK, second part is visiting the Central business district. We have visited and explained quite a few places in Central during the tour: Feng Shui war between HSBC & Bank of China, HSBC & its guardian lions, the reclamation of Hong Kong coastline, St. John Cathedral and Former French Missionary Building. Even in the first part about politics and history we visited Central Government Complex, Tamar Park, PLA building, and City Hall Memorial.
4. Walking distance - The total walking distance is around 3 km in this tour.
However, it is unrealistic to expect everyone likes the content. To avoid any miscommunication, we tried our best to explain our intention to every guest at the start of the tour such that expectation is aligned before the tour begins. Given this is a free walking tour, the guests could not only walk away in the beginning but also walk away at any point during the tour if the content does not fit their appetite.
I hope we answered your questions. Thank You.
Regards,
Michael
(Based on the four points above, we suspect this review is a bit too suspicious and we have reported to Tripadvisor.)
