Netizens call for boycott of Heathrow after duty-free shop discriminates against Chinese tourists

At a time like this, spare a thought for Heathrow’s social media manager

A mega-scandal has erupted on the Chinese internet over a scheme employed by a duty-free shop in London’s Heathrow Airport which preyed on big-spending Chinese tourists, hurting China’s feelings yet again ahead of the holidays.

Chinese travelers allegedly had to spend 1,000 pounds ($1,380) at the airport’s World Duty Free shop to receive a 20% discount voucher for the next time that they visited the outlet, while shoppers of other nationalities needed only to spend 250 pounds ($345) for the same VIP voucher.

This scheme was exposed over the weekend by Weibo user @人间奶泡, a Chinese student in the UK who works part-time at the shop and wrote about how he escorted a female Chinese traveler to the counter after she had purchased 300 pounds worth of items, only for the cashier to tell him that she still needed to spend 700 pounds more to receive the discount voucher because she was Chinese.

The Weibo user complained to his manager who said that the 1000-pound policy applies only to those who are flying to China, and admitted that it was a “little bit unfair.” Meanwhile, one of the netizen’s colleagues told him that one foreign customer had got the voucher after spending only 79 pounds ($109).

In the rest of his post, the Weibo user rants about this instance of blatant discrimination against Chinese, how unreasonably expensive items are in the shop (try Taobao instead, he recommends), and even refers to the shop’s management as “white pigs” (白皮猪).

At the moment, his post has more than 11 million views, 85,000 shares, and 15,000 comments on Weibo. Underneath, some also cried out in outrage against the discriminatory system, even calling for a boycott of Heathrow, while others who had shopped before at the duty-free shop wrote in about their own experiences.

One Weibo user said that she was told to spend 450 pounds to get the voucher, adding that the shop perhaps employs a “seasonal pricing” structure, with the cost of the voucher for Chinese travelers shooting up around Spring Festival.

On Monday, World Duty Free finally responded to the scandal with a statement on its Weibo account, saying that the company had “identified an issue which we have corrected with immediate effect. The programme applies regardless of the destination customers are flying to.”

As you might expect, Chinese netizens weren’t terribly happy with this statement, noting that an apology was not included and daring the company to share the statement on its international social media accounts as well.

Meanwhile, the poor individual who’s in charge of Heathrow Airport’s Twitter account has been working overtime politely responding to all of the tweets from outraged Chinese internet users.

Give this man/woman a raise!