Fodor's Travel Talk Forums - which travel agency for a trip to china

It's probably worth noting that almost any China tour operator can offer a 'customized' tour but that 'reasonable and competitive' rates tend only to appear to be so from a distance and from a developed nation's idea of pricing, and before hidden extras are calculated. China Plus recommends bringing US dollars for use as tips, and rather a large quantity of them. This is daylight robbery and abuse of their clients.

It's also worth noting that most China travel companies are using the same very limited selection of ground handlers to run the trip within China, and there can be very little difference indeed between tours. When the ground handlers sell to foreign tour operators (be they 'american' or anywhere else) the latter simply bolt on a percentage to cover their own overheads and profit. The only benefit from paying the extra sum is that you can apply home country trading laws if anything goes wrong. If a Chinese company fails to perform there's next to zero chance of any compensation or refund.

The key questions to ask any travel company you are thinking of using for China are (in addition to those about group size, age range, etc., that you would ask any company):

How many shopping stops will there be? (You want to avoid these as you will be massively overcharged.)

What is the tipping policy? (There's shouldn't even be one. There's no tipping in China and advising you to pay so many dollars per day--stratospheric sums in terms of local incomes--is merely cheating you.)

Will there be a foreign tour director accompanying the group all the way? (Tends to help avoid shenanigans when in China).

In general the large Chinese tour operators are to be avoided as they are all running the same scams. There may be an honest one, but I have yet to come across it. The mass market foreign operators are often little better, since they simply purchase their ground handling services from the same people, and slap their name and a mark-up on it. In general the best tours are those run by truly specialist foreign-run companies, with a China expert accompanying the trip the whole way (which also means that there's some truth in the cultural and historical narrative supplied, free of the propaganda pumped out by the Chinese companies/guides). Shopping stops are limited or non-existent, and tipping avoided altogether or kept truly optional using a kitty system and managed carefully at levels relevant to the local economy by the tour manager.

If saving money really is the point, it's a lot cheaper to travel independently than to travel with any tour company to China. But if a fully escorted tour is required, it pays to ask a lot of questions before sending in your deposit.

Peter N-H