Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - Recommendations Needed for Travel Agent

> Maybe I don't even need a travel agent?

Indeed. It's best not to insert any third party into such transactions, and is typically very expensive to do so in China.

> How difficult is it to book Chinese hotels, flights & transportation, tours, etc over the Internet?

Results can be mixed, and this needs to be done with caution. In the case of hotels, if you are planning to select famous-name foreign-run hotels then typically the property's own website will provide the best prices, and indeed most guarantee that they will do so, and this will go smoothly. But if looking at Chinese-run hotels, with the exception of the chains known as jingji hotels which have modest but adequate facilities and that target businessmen with fixed low prices, booking directly will guarantee that you pay far too much.

Published prices for Chinese-run are a delusion, and no one pays them. Looking at sites such as Ctrip and eLong will give you something closer to the reality. They appear to offer vast discounts, but in fact are only publicising the prices that you can obtain for yourself, or typically beat over the counter. Paying just 30% of published prices is quite common; paying no more than 70% of them is practically standard. With a party of six your savings can be very substantial indeed.

The hotel descriptions on these sites are often dishonest or wildly inaccurate, however, and should not be relied on. Nor do these booking engines have more than a proportion of the total available hotel stock, so using them can limit your options. And there can be difficulties with using foreign credit cards, with finding your reservation actually exists, with getting refunds if cancellations are necessary and you've been asked to pay in advance (not always necessary). Sometimes hotels just ask you on arrival quietly to cancel your reservation, and then give you the same room at a lower rate (but which avoids them paying commission) under a different name. Sometimes even if you've paid in advance, the rooms aren't there. In China, cash is king, and being there in person at the counter gives you an advantage over a reservation that may turn into a no-show, especially when the hotel is filling up.

In short it's a mess, which is why if you intend to stay in Chinese-run hotels, the best policy (to make sure that your room is what you expect it to be, is there at all, and is sold at a local market price) is simply to do as most Chinese do, most of the time, and just show up and bargain. A compromise is to book something for the first two or three nights and to carry on from there. If you're willing to spend the equivalent of US$40-50 per night, your range of choice is near-infinite, and for modest but acceptable rooms (at jingji hotels or elsewhere) you can easily pay less even for very centrally located properties. Upwards pressure on prices is little related to any Western idea of 'high season' and to do with completely different cycles of Chinese public holidays, with political events (varying depending on location), etc., whether resort or business location, etc. In general, except for island and mountain top locations, summer is not high season for mid-range Chinese-run hotels, and at all levels of accommodation there are far more rooms available than there are bodies to fill them, and it's a buyer's market. Booking in advance ties one hand behind your back, as well as taking away the spontaneity and ability to react to circumstances that (in addition to cheapness) is one of the main benefits of independent travel over organised touring.

Jingji hotels you may safely book ahead directly with using their own booking website or calling the booking number in China, but unfortunately the provision of English on their websites is patchy, and not often found on their switchboards. If you can find a Mandarin speaker to help you at home, then booking (foreign credit card hiccups aside) is straightforward.

Get Googling for Jinjiang Inn, Hanting Hotel, JoyInn, Shindom, Motel 268 (some rooms in each property at ¥268 (about US$40, pretty typical of hotels of this kind, although often cheaper still), Home Inn, etc. Typically rooms are small, with shower only, wooden floors, pastel colours and light wooden furniture, free or very cheap wi-fi, and free or very cheap breakfast. At most at least one staff member will speak a little English. Rates come in two fixed levels: the walk-in price and a slightly lower price available to those who purchase a membership, and unlike all other Chinese hotels, there's no bargaining. There's little to choose between the different chains since, as is typical in China, most are simply copying the business model of the most successful (Jinjiang). There is, for instance, the Wangfu Jing Piao Home Inn very close to the Forbidden City with rooms for only $30. Also have a look at the French-run Ibis hotels which offer the same approach across Europe (and South America, I noted yesterday) and are priced to compete with the Chinese offerings, while not yet having anything like the same numbers of properties in China.

Of course, there's no know what you're looking for, and perhaps you want considerably more luxury, but this tells you something of the choices available and the real state of hotel pricing. You should drive from your mind any thoughts of what constitutes are fair price at home as that has nothing to do with anything at all.

Again with flights, the best prices are in general to be found by just booking as you go. There are myriad ticket agencies easily identifiable in the streets, and if you're in an hotel that doesn't typically see much foreign custom (or you can just wander into the lobby of one if you're staying further up-market yourself) then prices from agencies there are usually reliable. You can get something near to the prices you can obtain in person by using again Ctrip and eLong, but with similar caveats, and still not, typically, until two or three weeks before you travel. There are also problems with bait-and-switch on these sites, so again a little caution is needed. Again, discounts (in other words, real prices) are substantially less than those you'll see on foreign air ticket booking engines, most of which are unaware even of the existence of most Chinese domestic flights. You may pay as little as one third or one quarter of the prices on these sites, but even where 'discounts' are a more modest 30% of so, for a party of six the savings rapidly mount up. It may be hard to come to terms with, but most ticket purchasing in China is last-minute or walk-up (even for flights overseas no one I know books more than about a week in advance) and pricing patterns reflect this, and not what you might expect. Of course, there are no guarantees, but in general it is only during Chinese New Year or the beginning and end of the October holiday that you might run into trouble, and then if you've organised your schedule such that you absolutely must be on a certain flight and no other. On the routes you are likely to take there are myriad choices, and once you add in the possibility of changing planes at any one of many intermediate cities, the chances of not getting where you want to be are very slight indeed. Take a more flexible, independent view of travel, and problems are few.

As for tours, stick to one-day trips that bring ease of access, and even then try to take the tours for Chinese and avoid anything heavily sold in English, and still note that there's very little you can't reach on public transport for a fraction of the (foreigner-targeting) tours. City tours within big cites are mostly a waste of time and you're much better simply to read widely before you travel, draw up a list of priorities, and tackle them in order. One-day tours on Chinese buses run at weekends out of Beijing usually include discounted entrance to the destination site, and don't mess about with unwelcome shopping stops. You can reach Great Wall locations this way, as well as major tomb sites and assorted out-of-town prettiness, and often find yourselves the only foreigners on the bus. Xi'an has some convenient one-day tours although again if your main interest is the Terracotta Warriors then there's a directly public bus which will leave you with complete freedom to spend as long as you like there.

> There are a lot of tour companies whose websites say they will design custom tours, but I hate to just pick one blindly.

Quite right, and it's best, indeed, not to pick any at all, as you'll pay far too much for every single element, and also suffer problems with shopping stops, etc. where the tour company will have its hands very deeply in your pocket. The Chinese tourism industry depends upon the timidity of the foreigner, and works to promote the idea of a cultural gulf, in order to take you for every penny it can. But there are thousands of independent travellers in China even as we speak, for most transactions no knowledge of Mandarin is required, and with a party of six you can very easily delegate one individual to look at hotels or ask a couple of agencies about rail or air tickets, etc. Much more could be said about how all this is done with little loss of time and often with both real discoveries and dramatic savings, but it's mostly just common sense.

Do use the search box to find many threads dealing with exactly these issues in more detail.

Peter N-H