China Travel Forum

[stefin]

My dad is planning a trip to HK and China. he would like to plan and reserve as much as possible in advance, for which he is using a European travel agency. They offered him a 10 day trip which is, as expected very expensive by Asian standards (more than 5K€ excluding local flights). I suspect this is far more than the actual cost price of such a trip.

His requirements are: good english speaking guides and nice 4 star hotels. He would very much like to avoid the stressfull situations associated with a country where hardly anyone speaks English.

my question is: does anyone know any reputable Chinese tour operators that offer these kinds of packages at a good price? can their (internet) bookings be trusted?

thanks for any tips

[kamal]

Wow, that is very expensive for ten days!! Problem is, local agencies can be very hit or miss--mostly miss. A lot depends on the particular guides. They tend to go to shops, restaurants and hotels that give the best kickbacks, and those are often not very good. Even the foreign operators often use these local guides, but their job is to request the best guides, insist that they don't turn the trip into a personal kick-back collection run.

Perhaps someone here can recommend a good HK based agency (better legal culture!) I think your dad should be able to get a personally arranged trip from a good agency that includes domestic flights for less. Of course going with a small group on a prearranged itinerary should be even cheaper.

[nafisa]

I suggest you contact Richard Tian. Reportedly he is a quite reliable agent in Beijing China,may offer you a package at a fair price. try this email address:richards_tour@yahoo.com.

[amila]

We booked them over the internet for 10 days starting from Hong Kong - we got there ourselves. They provided tickets for internal flights (HKG to Beijing, to Xian, to Guilin, back to Hong Kong) which were waiting at our Hong Kong hotel when we arrived. We paid a deposit of $800 USD by credit card, the remainder after arrival in Beijing.

We choose an all inclusive package, which gave us our own car/driver and guide in each city - 4* hotel and all meals, plus a couple of evening entertainments.

Total - all up cost - was substantially less than the figure above!! Unbelievably cheap considering the quality of what we got!

I'd recommend them. Lily is a fluent and punctual communicator.