Have you traveled with this tour company. Any comments?

See posts http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35125084
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35149291

The poster frequently posts to praise this company, and has failed to deny suggestions that he may have some commercial connection with it.

You'll find detailed discussions here of why booking on-line with Chinese tour companies is a bad idea, and some criteria to use when selecting a tour company. See this recent thread, for instanc::

http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35153415

Peter N-H

My wife & I went on a four week trip to China this past July & August 2008. Part of our trip was on our own, and part was organized through China Highlights. We loved China and thoroughly enjoyed the China Highlights portion of our trip. The guides, drivers, accommodations, meals, & tours truly added to our vacation. What drew us to China Highlights was their willingness to completely customize our trip based on criteria & specifics that we set. Our travel advisor (the person who actually organizes your trip) called us from China once prior to our trip while we were still in the US, just to follow-up on finalizing some of our travel plans. We even met with her one evening in our hotel lobby while we were in Guilin, adding a personal touch to our visit. Based on our experience, we would highly recommend China Highlights.

Houdi,
We traveled in China in the spring of 2007 as part of a larger SE Asia trip & cruise.
We used China Highlights for our 16 day trip (we used another agency for a later addition in Guilin).
We were very happy with them; they were flexible in arranging the schedules, listened to our requests before arranging the trip, customizing the itinerary, etc. The guides in each city were good to excellent with good command of English.
My only suggestion to them afterwards was that we would have preferred to pay a little extra, if needed, and eat at top restaurants (not just what was convenient) and as we are not shoppers, we would eliminate the stops at "factories". You may enjoy those.
Overall a very reliable company - we can recommend them without reservation.

I travelled with Chinahighlights last june (part of my tour in China). I asked them to organize me a mini-tour from Beijing to Xian, Datong and Chengde and their organization has been perfect: very professional guides, drivers, good restaurants and hotels. I highly recommend them.

i too used chinahighlights to plan our trip. i customized our trip by only hiring guides when i thought we needed them and did not buy any meal plans ex. on full day tours. we had the guides take us to local places where we had some wonderful, fresh meals.

the hotels we stay at were clean and convenient and connections were flawless. i recommend their services.

This is a thankless task as people rarely want to re-consider their choices after the event, especially if there may have been better alternatives. Nevertheless, with future travellers in mind, here is a repeat of suggestions as to how you should go about choosing a tour company, and advice that choosing a China-based tour company is in general unwise.

It is also posted with the aim of avoiding this site going the way of the Frommer's one, in which shills for various companies clog it with posts that pretend to be disinterested advice, add posts in praise under false names, paste in true notes of praise already appearing on their own sites, and are joined by those who genuinely have travelled, and genuinely were pleased, but who actually have no experience of the alternatives, or are unaware of what deceits may on some occasions have been practised upon them. The result can be a torrent of enthusiasm that isn't in fact merited, and that's of course what the shills hope to generate. Let's not see this site reduced to that.

When choosing a tour company, in addition to the usual considerations of route, cultural level, group size, and so on, you should ask some questions:

What is your tipping policy? There is no tipping in China, and in order to be able to offer very low prices some companies spring on you a non-optional tip once the booking is made. This is daylight robbery. If your tour company is recommending that you pay out US$3 per day here, and US$5 per day there, look elsewhere. If they recommend you bring low denomination US dollar bills with you not only look elsewhere but first track down the company's offices and set fire to them before they can rip anyone else off.

China Highlights, which appears to be discreetly spamming this site and thus ought to be avoided on those grounds alone, uses more circumspect language, but also advises that tipping is necessary. It isn't, and it at the very best misleading, and at the worst overcharging you by the back door (to put it kindly), to say it is.

How many shopping stops will there be? Other than tipping-theft policies, this is the main way the company makes money, by repeatedly leading hapless tourists into places that will charge them 10 to 15 times too much for trinkets, and the guide will get 40% (or more), and the bus driver a cash sum, too.

Some companies manage to limit these to one or two per trip (it is almost impossible to avoid them entirely). You can always sit them out (you certainly shouldn't be spending money), but find out how much time you're going to be spending doing that.

Note that one comment above specifically mentions that with China Highlights these stops were too frequent. Given the way these stops work one is in fact too many, but rare even the best of the foreign-run tour companies that can pull that off.

Just how relentless is the pace? The cheaper companies tend to cram in as much as they can. It helps to keep you from freelance shopping rather than shopping from which they can take a bite.

There's no comment on this above, so ask.

Is there a foreign tour manager who will accompany the group the whole time? This is worth paying more for since there are constant problems with downgraded hotel rooms or other non-delivery of promised benefits. An experienced tour manager sees all this coming and heads it off.

Obviously Chinese-run travel companies do not offer this service.

Note that very little of what your tour guides tell you will actually be true, since they have been to schools that teach them what should be said to foreigners. The travel industry is just another part of the overall propaganda effort. Read widely and bring Western source books with you. When taking a tour, even if you prefer to have everything organised for you and to to have to worry about logistics, note that you are paying to be misled, and prepare appropriately.

Note that in the worst cases you'll be in hotels on the edge of big cities with a lot of time wasted in taking buses into the centre. In some you'll stay at one hotel and be bussed to another for lunch (and a shopping demonstration of some kind). In general, especially at the cheaper end, itineraries are driven by whatever's profitable to the tour company in terms of kick-backs, and not by what's best for the tourist. Food is often poor, although those only accustomed to Chinese take-away food overseas may well not realise that they've never had real Chinese food in their lives, nor what they are missing.

One comment about China Highlights above indeed asks for better food.

Some comment is made above about the flexibility of arrangements, but this is true of ALL Chinese tour companies of this kind, and it is not at all unusual for couples to find themselves the only members of all of parts of their tours, or to be able to design a tailor-made tour for what seems a very reasonable price. Margins are large, and income from kick-backs and fraudulent tipping policies make these very viable.

So if you usually travel independently, do it in China, too. But if you do prefer tours, expect widespread dishonesty and book with great caution, and certainly not at random from the Internet, but with a company whose name you know, and liable under the laws of your home country to pay compensation if things don't go well.

If you did travel with a Chinese tour company and had a good time, no doubt much of what is said above will be unwelcome, but don't waste time here shooting the messenger. It is an accurate general description of how organised travel works in China, and the oh-so-sweetness of most of the guides as individuals, some of whom make stunning sums of money by Chinese standards and through entirely inappropriate means, only serves as a mask the underlying mechanisms.

The attitude 'Well I don't care if I paid too much/was cheated/tipped when it isn't appropriate' is of course up to the individual who has already travelled, but who should not resent the warning to make careful enquiries being given to those who have yet to travel.

Peter N-H

Peter N-H
I have been following your posts for some time and while I was tempted to reply, I resisted the urge. I can resist no longer.
I don’t doubt that you are well informed and well traveled in general and in China in particular. You are an eloquent poster as well. But in my opinion you miss some of the points on this and other thread about tours in China.
I will try to address some of the questions you raise.
1 To begin with, I resent your implication that I am a “spammer” for China Highlights or any other tour company. While this practice does exist, do you have any proof that any of the 4 poster on this thread that claim to have traveled with China Highlights is lying? Or that copilot in a different post is making it all up?
http://www.fodors.com/forums/threads...p;tid=35125084
One of the benefits of sites such as Fodorite is to be able to read REAL peoples’ experiences (both positive & negative) and not just to Google for hotels, restaurants and guides. That is why people post here – to ask for other peoples’ actual experiences. I think most readers here can make up their minds what to believe and what is a pitch.
My comments about shopping stops and food were made to help others if they so chose.
2 Your comments, while may be true, offer nothing constructive. You simply and categorically state that people should not book with Chinese agencies. What would be more helpful (and what people are likely looking for) is advice. Can you actually recommend a company (any company, Chinese or foreign) that you would recommend (preferable from your own experience, as others have done).
3 You are very big on traveling independently (“So if you usually travel independently, do it in China, too”). I consider myself very well traveled, having visited over 111 different countries all over the world (good part of that was independent travel). Despite that I would not undertake an independent travel in China. Traveling independently in Italy or Spain and doing it in China is not the same thing. For one, most of us cannot read Chinese characters and once you leave the center of Shanghai or Beijing that is what you are likely to see – Chinese characters (and I don’t mean people). Also, you should assume that NO ONE speaks English, because it is close to the truth. The only people that speak English are essentially in the hotels (some) and your guides. You cannot count on running into a college professor or a student on the street when you are lost. Try speaking English to a taxi driver (even in Shanghai & Beijing ) and see where it gets you. But you probably know all this. Even if you don’t speak Spanish or Italian, you can read the street signs; or you can show your Lonely Planet guide book to a local who can read the name of the place you are looking for and thus point you in the right direction. Try that in Xi’An (or worse – in the countryside).
4 You say that “There is no tipping in China”. That may well be true for the peasants in the country but not so in Shanghai & Beijing. China may be officially a communist country but capitalism in alive and well in China. That is especially true for the people most of us tourists would come in contact with. Like it or not, they have learned and accepted “our” ways very quickly. Besides, they are in the service industry. They are paid very poorly and depend on tips much like other people in that business all around the world. This is NOT the China of Mao cca 1985 (when I was there for the first time). These guides have mastered a foreign language (more than most of us can say) and they deserved to be rewarded IF they do their job well.
5 “Note that very little of what your tour guides tell you will actually be true”. That may be true or may not be true, depending on your guide. The average tourist does not know the difference between Ming and Qing dynasty and probably doesn’t care. They will be given many facts about different centuries, dynasties, etc much of which will be forgotten 4 months later. For those truly interested, they can read and re-read for themselves. I rather enjoyed the local guides (usually young students in their twenties) and their view on China vs the outside world. They mostly were enthused and proud to show us their “home”. I was very happy to tip them when it was deserved (usually the case)
6 These tours can indeed be quite flexible with itineraries and hotels; one does not have to accept their hotels if one are willing to do some research. We picked our own hotels in Beijing and Shanghai (and other places, if I didn’t like their recommendation). That flexibility is not there with many other set tours (Viking cruisetours of China, for example). You have to stick to their itinerary without any exceptions. This may be perfect for some but not flexible enough for others.
7 As far as shopping is concerned, it has been my experience that MOST (but not all) people love to shop on their trips. This is probably their first and last trip to China and they want some souvenirs. If their itineraries are full with sightseeing, there is not much time for shopping and these stops are welcome by most. Alternatively, if you chose not to shop – just make it clear in advance.

There are probably other things I might have mentioned, but I think you get the idea of what I am trying to say.

As I said, this is a thankless task. My posting needs to be re-read, as this response is a complete waste of time.

1. Off the high horse. No one has called you a spammer, and no one doubts you are a real person with real experiences. Presumably so am I. No one doubts you intended to help. So do I.

2. My comments are extremely constructive (even if I say so myself), and not happening to like them doesn't make them less so. They prepare readers for poor practices within organised travel in China, and provide a set of questions that intending travellers should ask when trying to differentiate between tour companies. If I don't care to recommend any particular tour company, but suggest that people use the criteria provided and think for themselves, that is surely entirely up to me and no one has the right to demand otherwise.

3. The posting needs to be read again. The only suggestion made here is that those who prefer independent travel should not automatically head for group travel when visiting China.

Tens of thousands of visitors travel independently and without a word of Mandarin every year, and so arguments that it cannot be done are just a waste of breath.

Of course many people prefer organised travel, as is indeed observed in the posting if it is read properly. And its point is to help them make wise choices when they do so, and to avoid some of the pitfalls. Why should this be resented?

4. Entirely rubbish, I'm sorry. But inevitably many who have been conned into tipping while in China will never swallow their pride. That cannot be helped. What's important is that those still planning to visit China (including Beijing and Shanghai, where I've spent a lt of time over the last 20 years) are not equally deceived. There is no tipping in China other than that visited upon hapless foreign tourists, and indeed a popular term for tipping amongst some Chinese guides is 'stupid foreigner tax' (本老外费). Chinese know perfectly well that the price they negotiate for a service is the price they pay, and that's that. If a tour company encourages you to tip it is cheating you, and the real charge for its services is the published price plus these tips. If it tells you that some you meet have no salary and depend on tips it is cheating you further. (Was there actually any other source for this proposal? Isn't that what China Highlights falsely claims on its website?)

Mysteriously no Chinese is paying these tips. And in fact the sums earned by some guides from scalping foreigners are so great that they sometimes have to bid against other guides to buy the right to take out tour groups. But this is certainly no justification for offering them further free money, even if China was a society where tipping was appropriate.

5. Have a guide if you want one--what's there to argue about? But be aware that no information with a political angle (which includes a great deal of historical and cultural material) can be relied upon, and you are paying to be misled. The education system with its single-source Party-approved historical myths, and the guide training system intended to make sure that the right propaganda messages about modern China are put across.

National pride often also plays a part in hyperbole, and of course the hope that if you are told what they think you want to hear you may foolishly provide a tip over the agreed fee. That fact that all this is very unpalatable unfortunately does not make it less true, and the fact that the guides are almost universally very pleasant doesn't make it less true either.

6. As stated, very many Chinese tour companies have the flexibility, which is unexceptional. Very many foreign tour companies do not.

7. Does the fact that some people like shopping make any of the observations about tour shenanigans suddenly less true? Was there any argument against shopping? Is it also true that people who like shopping like being ripped off? Isn't rather the contrary usually the case, and isn't it then rather a good thing to warn them about what's likely to happen to them if they shop at an organised shopping stop and listen to their guide's advice about price?

As I said, this is always a thankless task. The truths of China tourism are sour and unpleasant to think about and to recount. If you've travelled, and fallen into some of the traps, just deal with it rather than denying their existence.

The very detailed claims I set out are based on extensive research, on taking tours of many types in many parts of China specifically to research what's going on, on interviews with dozens of tour companies both Chinese and foreign, on making the acquaintance of many guides and chatting with them in their own language on what goes on, and on more than 20 years of visiting, living, and working in China, and pooling my information with that of other researchers.

I'm not claiming infallibility or asking for applause, and I only mention this because I am claiming to have made a lengthy and detailed study of these issues a little beyond the experience of a traveller with a single visit to China within the organised tourism bubble of a single tour company.

Heaven knows there's no benefit in setting all this out as usually someone always half-reads what's said, takes umbrage, and starts a fight. So before anyone else weighs in, give me some credit for bothering, swallow the pride, learn for the next trip, and allow those yet to travel to have a better experience whether travelling independently or on an organised tour, which is entirely the aim of setting out these remarks in the first place.

Peter N-H

I'm very happy with the service that they provided. I still remember i made several changes on my flight booking and they're very happy to help. The travel advisor tried her best to give me the best connecting flight. There will always be one key person to follow up on your requests. There wasn't any problem communicating thru emails as she always reply on the same day or the next day.

Peter N_H,
Credit was given to you in the second sentence (if read properly, to use your terminology).
I do not wish to engage in endless discussions and arguments - we would probably never agree on everything. I simply posted my point of view for future travelers and I don't see how you can automatically invalidate that. Your observations are valid but so are mine and they are based on more than a single trip to China. Like you say, just because my observations do not agree with yours, that does not make them invalid; nor does it invalidate anyone else's first hand experiences. Independent travel to China is certainly possible, but it is for a very small minority of travelers.
I will sign off on this subject and let's agree to disagree.
Happy travels.

To get in between this heated argument I'd just like to add my 2 cents. Having a holiday is about enjoying yourself - and careful travelers may wish to use folk like - China Highlights Tours - for the enjoyment of peace of mind, and ease of travel. And its proven theis company can do the job it promises, so good luck to those punters since it ain't my money they're using and it aint my holiday they're planing.

But there are others - like me - who, enjoying doing their own independent thing, wouldn't wish to touch companies like this with a 20ft barge-pole!!!!

In short - each to there own - and respect for each others choices - otherwise these forums soon start to resemble a rather eloquent kindergarten bust-up

laowai - I second that motion.
Happy trails to us all!

Personally, I find that going to less than great restaurants, and stopping at factory outlets to shop, or anyplace I prefer not to spend my money, would be a huge negative in going with a particular tour company This would not be just a minor problem, it would be the #1 reason I don't go on tours anymore.

lol, the posts are neither eloquent nor informative......maybe informative but all are in search of new recruits for his website, that's all

He will always mention or refer you to his site from time to time

He does not allow this on his site where he is the SOLE editor and demigod

On his site you would have been deleted before posting

I usually don't get upset with other members but when they constantly use and belittle us I find I must protest

sad but true

lollylo25,
I do agree with you. That is why I mentioned this so that other potential travelers may make those changes before they agree on final itinerary (better restaurants, hotels, less or no shopping, etc). The point is that many companies ARE flexible, you just need to tell them ahead of time (to other travelers it may not matter).
Tours like Viking, on the other hand, are too "main line" and not flexible.
Hawaiiantraveler,
I assume you are referring to Peter N_H - in which case I tend to agree with you. I didn't realize he had his own site.

correct Paul, if you write something not in his bible all of a sudden your an idiot.....go figure

I doubt I would invite PeterN_H to play Santa Claus at our Christmas party. But I hate being manipulated and/or being ripped off. I think someone stole my first diaper in the hospital nursery when I was born. I just hate being played.

I found Peter's advice in this regard accurate and very helpful (as I did yours HT). How he says it or whether he has his own web site is unimportant to me.

Is it worth mentioning that this site is for the discussion of travel in Asia, and not for the discussion of 'what I think of other posters'?

> He will always mention or refer you to his site from time to time

Setting aside that this sentence makes little sense ('always', or 'from time to time'?), and has absolutely no relevance to the matters under discussion, it is a lie, and posted entirely out of mischievousness.

A search of this site produced precisely seven mentions of The Oriental-List (which is not a site, but a mailing list) over the last four years, only one of them by me (in reply to a mention of it by someone else) and none with any information on how to access the list itself. The list is entirely non-commercial, run pro bono, and whether people are members here and/or there, or at other travel sites such as Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree or Frommer's, both often mentioned, is irrelevant. If the list's several hundred members resigned and it closed down today it wouldn't matter in the slightest, but if I wanted to promote it effectively here, I think I'd take a different course than simply failing to mention it.

Postings appear there entirely according to whether they are polite and on-topic as set out in guidelines sent to each new member, just as there are (although sadly rarely enforced) guidelines here. Abusive and off-topic postings such as hawaiiantraveller's above, certainly do not appear, and the rest of the membership is glad of it.

In recent times the list has most often been mentioned here, although not by name, by hawaiiantraveller himself, in other similarly abusive postings entirely free of useful content and that set out to deride it, which is of course only to deride its membership and their discussions. One of these happened to reveal that despite repeatedly claiming to despise the list he was actually a member.

Wishing to spare him further pain, I cancelled his membership, only the second time someone has been thrown off for Internet abuse in the 11 years the list (not a site) has been operating.

I wonder if that could be playing a role here?

It's a shame that Paulchili, after an obvious attempt to avoid further disagreement with his remarks by claiming to sign off the discussion, couldn't keep his word nor refrain from getting personal either.

The discussion here is not on matters of opinion as he now wants to characterise it, but on matters of fact of which the intending China traveller needs to be aware when choosing a tour company or making a choice between organised tour and independent travel (laowai also please note). It is not for or against either method of travel, but about understanding that either is equally possible (as proved by tens of thousands of travellers each year, not a 'very small minority'), and about making an informed choice when using either method.

If posters concentrated on providing factual on-topic material with the aim of helping future travellers, rather than indulging in petty vendettas that only make them look foolish, those of us freely willing to share relevant experience and research would be likely to do so more frequently.

Sh
Peter N-H