Dear Ricky,
It was nice meeting with you in Guilin.
Our visit to China has been one of the most interesting trips in the last years. Your country has really plenty of interesting things to offer to a foreigner. The most striking aspect is the variety of attractions China has so that everyone can find something suitable to his/her taste. The weather was relatively clement with us with relatively little rain during the trip. We were less lucky in the
mountains with clouds frequently obstructing the view.
Our overall assessment of the package offered by your agency is positive. This is a good outcome, given that we are rather demanding tourists and used to organize travels on our own rather than through agencies.
You will find below a detailed feedback of the specific aspects of the trip with some suggestions, which you might find useful in case you will be offering packages to other Italian (or European) tourists.
Itineraries: the daily trips were well designed and organised. We suggest however that some free mornings or afternoons are left at disposal especially in the main cities. On some occasions (Beijng, Shanghai), visits were stretched in a day whereas they could have been compressed more effectively in half a day. In addition, the big cities should not be visited during weekends since there are too many tourists around. Whereas we are used to demanding holidays, some tourists may find the entire package a bit strenuous, given the number of places and transfers involved. A suggestion could be to extend the staying in the Yunnan province (by including Dali and Shangri-La) and drop the visit to the Huangshan.
Accommodation: we are broadly satisfied with the hotels. We would recommend all hotels with the exception of the one in Chengde since it was too far away from the centre of the city. Some of us had problems with the hotel in Lijang (humidity leakages in the bathroom) though it has a wonderful position in the old city. The Tibet hotel in Chengdu is the one which impressed us mostly from the viewpoint of design and furniture.
Food: this was the critical aspect. Whereas we made an effort to adapt ourselves to the local habits, Chinese food can be rather rough for European palates. There were meals during which we were able to eat very little. Our suggestion is to offer, in case of full board formula, a daily combination of Chinese (e.g. lunch) and western-style (e.g. dinner) food so that foreigners can get used to Chinese food progressively. Another issue was the time of meals. Europeans are on average used to have lunch between 13.00 and 14.00 and dinner between 19.30 and 20.30. We had to negotiate frequently with the guides on the appropriate timing since their suggestion was to have the meals at around 12.00 and 18.00
Guides: they were good on average and excellent in some circumstances (as the last two ones). We appreciated in particular the flexibility of some guides to adapt the itinerary to our needs, whenever possible. They all spoke good English (one guide was able to speak Italian)
Transportation. We were struck by the efficiency and modernity of the Chinese airline infrastructure and fleet. Planes were always punctual with the exception of the last flight from Huangshan to HK due to a late arrival of the plane from Shanghai (for bad weather). As to the transfers on the road, some drivers had a rather scaring driving style but we realised that this was common among Chinese drivers. Vans were on average comfortable and spacious.
Hope it is useful.
Best regards.
Mauro |
