I have been comparing and contrasting tours to China for late spring. The Collette tours seem to be priced lower than most of the others although they are all labeled
"Deluxe". Does anyone know why this might be?? They seem to visit the same sites. A friend of mine took a Collette tour to New England and was not happy with the location of the hotels, but these hotels look o.k. to me. Am I missing something? Are they about to go bankrupt?

I have no direct experience with Collette, but the likely answer is that most travel companies offering tours in China are simply buying off the peg from long-established state-owned organisations in China, adding their own overheads and profit margin, bundling up with an airfare, and selling them on. If you are sure the hotels, etc. are of the same quality as those from other companies, then the only likely difference is that this company has cut its profit margin to make its tours more competitive with the identical product elsewhere. It is also possible that it contains more shopping stops so as to allow the company to make money through the back door on mark-ups and commissions.

Travel to China is way down, but tour prices are mostly still much higher than they need to be, because most overseas visitors still think them cheap and are willing to pay the price. The big state-owned monoliths who provide the ground arrangements are highly unlikely to go under even if they did get in financial trouble. Since the foreign tour company is just buying wholesale (at retail prices) and passing on the tour, its exposure in China should be limited.

Peter N-H
http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

I did my travel and tourism internship in colletts headquarters in Providence. and from what litle too nothing I got out of it I can say that their tours have a good rep in the business...

I think it would be helpfull if you posted some of the hotels they offer (you can offord) too stay in.. a

Thanks, Peter and orgy7. After more careful scrutiny, I think Collette has more "shopping" stops than most of the others. Orgy, the hotels are:
Beijing--Marriott
Xian--ANA Grand Castle
Guilin--Sheraton
Shanghai--Renaissance Pudong

Just one minor correction: I see I've implied that a foreign company might have lower prices because it was allowing more shopping stops, which wasn't what I intended. It's possible that because there are more shopping stops the local company gives the foreign tour company a lower price, because it (the local company) is going to make more (often much more) money as a result. It's not the foreign company which will benefit.

The hotels look decent enough, although unexciting--all foreign-run. The question is whether the competing companies with higher prices are offering these, similar, or better hotels.

Peter N-H
http://members.axion.net/~pnh/China.html

There's nothing particularly wrong with the hotels they use other than the fact that some of them aren't very centrally located (specifically the Marriott in Beijing and Pudong Renaissance). I'm not familiar with Collette but hotel location often isn't the best on any tour.

I agree with Patty especialy on Guilin.. this is the city where tourist are pent in for the night. and wished they stayed in yangsou.