Rehema and Pendo entered the market openly, wearing visitor-services review badges.
The first vendor, Jalia, displayed one large menu.
“One price for everyone,” she said.
“Guide groups?”
“Same food price. If the association wants to pay the guide, that is the association’s problem.”
“And route traffic?”
Jalia looked at her half-empty tables.
“I left the scheme two months ago.”
She showed old and new route maps, but Pendo refused to call the route change retaliation without stronger evidence. Sales could also be seasonal.
Jalia disliked the caution but accepted the need for comparison.
Another vendor used a temporary seafood surcharge that was clearly written in chalk. Rehema marked it as a potentially legitimate price difference, not a problem simply because the number was higher.
A third stall had an optional reserved-seating package and actually itemized it. That higher total was more transparent than the guide-card receipts in the complaint file.
A fourth vendor defended the association’s system.
“Tour groups need tables ready, quick service, predictable timing. Packages have value.”
“Then why not list the value?”
The vendor paused.
“Maybe the format should change.”
The market already contained several possible business models. Reform would not need to invent commercial life from nothing.
Rehema wrote an important principle in the field notes:
**Transparent pricing does not mean frozen or identical pricing. It means the customer can see the basis before paying.**
Jalia agreed to be named as a fixed-price counterexample but asked not to become a symbolic hero.
“My stall is not perfect. I am only showing one method.”
Rehema respected that.
Other vendors preferred codes instead of names. The team recorded consent status row by row.
They also reviewed supply invoices with permission. Seafood costs genuinely varied with catch, quantity, and season. Some differences in retail price were completely normal.
That made the guide-linked tier question more precise.
Near midday a new route map reached every vendor.
Saada Seafood had disappeared from the main lane.
Jalia was gone too.
Stalls strongly aligned with the guide-partnership scheme remained near the primary drop point.
Mama Saada called immediately.
“Now do you believe me?”
“I believe the map changed. I do not yet know the criteria.”
“What more do you need?”
“The route basis.”
Her mother ended the call.
Pendo saved the old and new map versions.
The association’s first explanation referred to visitor flow, partner performance, and capacity.
It did not explain whether guide compliance contributed.
“Tomorrow we measure the consequence,” Pendo said.
Jalia was frustrated.
“You will count people while my business dies?”
“Yes. Because the count can show the effect without asking everyone to trust one story.”
Before leaving, Rehema added one more follow-up rule: repeat the vendor survey after the crisis period. A one-day interview could reflect temporary anger.
The new route map had already made the next chapter unavoidable.
At the final stall, Rehema asked a question that surprised the vendor: “What would make a transparent system workable for you?” The answer was not moral. It was technical. The vendor wanted a point-of-sale template for packages, route criteria that did not change without notice, and a way to recover guide-service costs openly. Pendo added those requirements to the field notes. The survey was already shifting from evidence collection toward remedy design. If reform demanded only that vendors stop doing something without giving them another operational path, the old practice would return as soon as the inspectors left.
Commercial pressure would now be visible at the tables.