Archive for the ‘China Tour Guide’ Category

Qualified Beijing tour guides

Sunday, October 17th, 2010
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Today I get an email from Susan Lykken who has used our travel service with three other family member during a recent trip to Beijing after disembarking from Princess Diamond at Tianjin Cruise Home Port on Oct 04, 2010.
 
In her email, Susan Lykken expresses her satisfaction with the service she and her family memeber have enjoyed offered by her tour guide – Cady, her driver – Mr.Liu and her trip advisor – Joy Guo from www.tour-beijing.com. In particular, she is extremely happy with her tour guide – Cady. Susan Lykken also lists the seven aspects of the excellent guide service on the part of Cady. These seven aspects almost cover all the requirements for a qualified tour guide.
 
We much appreciate Susan Lykken for her valueble time writing us the positive feedback and the seven outstanding qualities she has felt and enjoyed from a qualified tour guide. Her travel review is quite practical and useful in guiding our tour guide management.
 
Now I’m glad to post Susan’s review here in an attempt to keep our potential clients aware of what is a quailified tour guide and our tour guide of what is required from a good tour guide.
 
—– Original Message —–
From: Susan Lykken
To: manager@tour-beijing.com
Sent: Saturday, October 16, 2010 2:58 AM
Subject: Cady

I just want to tell you how much we enjoyed touring Beijing with Cady.  She was so
 

Cady, posed at Tianjin Port, one of the excellent Beijing tour guides working for www.tour-beijing.com

cheerful and happy.  I will list for you some of her outstanding qualities:
 
– Knowledge of 
Beijing history.  She gave us just the right amount of information, not too little or too much.
– She led us effortlessly through the crowds.  Many times she was able to avoid crowds.
– When we had seen all that was planned, she found something else to fill the time. Others might have returned us to our hotel.
– She stayed with us at all times.  Her days were very, very long.  She works very hard!
– When we were placed in 3 cabins on the train, she came onto the train and traded beds so that we (4) could all be together in the same cabin.
– When we arrived in Beijing on the train, she was waving to us through the window before the train even stopped.
– We were on our own the last day in 
Beijing 
and Cady gave us her phone number in case we needed help.  Our taxi driver was lost and called her for directions.  

 

I am sure there are many more things that I have not mentioned here.  Maybe I will write you again as I remember!  We also very much enjoyed Mr Liu, our driver.  He was very efficient at getting us through the crowded streets, always cheerful and prepared with water.  And Joy was so helpful and patient in arranging our tour.  She came up with the perfect trip.

Our Xian Tour  was also outstanding.  Jessica, our tour guide, was also knowledgeable and a good guide.

Cady is an exceptional guide.  I think that the is especially good with Americans, with her bubbly personality.  If we get back to Beijing we will certainly request her again.  And we will recommend Tour-Beijing and Cady to anyone visiting Beijing.  Thank you for a wonderful vacation!

Sincerely,

Susan Lykken

Beijing organized tour or Beijing independent travel?

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010
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Daphne with the group on the tourist bus having a happy time.

East, west, home is best. At last, back home after 9-day absence from Beijing! The first thing I’d like to do is to check the pile of email after my business trip, during which, I had only intermittent access to internet.  

One email catching my eyes today is about a positive feedback from a 12-people tour group that has used our travel service. I’m very happy with the content of the praise letter. This shows that travel agencies still have their living spaces though the booming internet has empowered our clients to travel independently with little assistance from a local travel agency.
 
Independent travel and organized travel are interdependent for many travelers. Sometimes and for some parts of the trip, we need independent trave while for others we want to use the travel service from a local travel agency to make most of your trip and have more interaction with the local people.
 
Below is the original email attached with 4 pictures from the 12-people group. Hopefully you will also have a good time in Beijing as the 12-people group.
 
————————————————–
 
Hello,
 
This is to thank you and your agency for providing such a wonderful guide to us!
Daphne is one of the most beautiful and kind guide we ever had. 
 
She was very considerate, patient and caring to all the persons in the group without discrimination.
Our group included 12 persons, each one with their own particularities and idiosyncracies, but Daphne was always smiling and willing to undertake all unfavourable conditions.
This was not an easy task.
 
So, on behalf of all in the group:
1. Dominique Kanaris
2. Natalia Kanaris
3. Andreas Shielis
4. Xenia Shieli
5. George Shielis
6. Nikos Kanaris
7. Tiziana Sojat
8. Antony Onoufriou
9. Yunsong Wu
10. Amelia Wu
11. John Peraticos
12. Androulla Peraticou,
 
we would like to convey the pleasure we had to visit Beijing with your agency.
Through this e-mail, we also express our deepest satisfaction and thanks to our superb and beautiful guide : DAPHNE!
Attached to this e-mail, are some of the many photos taken during the tour. Unforgettable moments captured through a camera.

Daphne with the group at Badaling Great Wall

Daphne with the group at Forbidden City

Daphne with the group on the tourist bus

Further Readings


Best Time to Visit Beijing
How to plan a trip to Beijing

Top 10 Attractions in Beijing
How to Visit Forbidden City
How to Visit Temple of Heaven
How to Visit Summer Palace
How to Visit Ming Tombs
How to Visit the Great Wall of China
How to Visit Tiananmen Square
How to Visit Hutongs
How to Visit Olympic Sites

Top 10 Markets in Beijing
Top 10 Shopping Malls in Beijing
Beijing Shopping

Wangfujing Walking Street
Qianmen Commercial Street
Gui Jie ( Ghost Street) Food Street

Any questions, just drop a line.

Travel Insurance VS Self-employed Tour Guides in China

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

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I often search Tripadvisor.com with regard to the real travelers’ review about our tour company. I have read some mixed reviews. Of course, I’m happy with the positive reviews and worried about some negative ones. But I still appreciate those who have written some unpleasant words of our tour company, which teaches us how to improve our service and make people happy within our capability and business scope.  

After following the travel forum at Tripadvisor for many years, today I’m suddenly struck with the feeling that many pages of Tripadvisor are studded with exciting reports of people having set up their own tour guide in Beijing or or other parts of China. People exchange their private information on these tour guides.
 
In China, it is not legal for tour guides to covertly contact travelers and directly offer tour guide service.
 
People will laugh at me for my saying so and maybe regard me as an idiot or an alien from outspace.
 
People say it is not wrong to pay somebody to do something. When coming to tour guides, people think, directly looking for a tour guide is much cheaper than hiring a guide from a local tour company. What’s more,  people feel they are certainly guaranteed of getting a lot more personal attention for longer peiods.
 
It seems that Tripadvisor offers a hotbed generating a kind of “deformed” tour business – people trade with the local tour guides directly.
 
I’m saying so not beause I’m worried about our tour company’s travel business. We are confident that we will grow better and better if we stick to our motto that “we no longer just satisfy our valued customers, we must totally impress them”.
 
What worries us is this kind of deformed business model will sooner or later harm the healthy developement of the travel service industry in China. This kind of business model will also harm the interest of travelers’ themselves in the end.
 
Take travelers’ travel insurance for example. You might travel in someone’s private car with a self-employed tour guide and I’m just wondering what might happen if you are in a serious accident, or say your luggage is stolen from the car, or something horrible like that. This event may not be the fault of the guide but even if it is, you would hardly expect to be offered or to obtain compensation at a western level for serious injuries or losses.
 
Travel insurance typically covers only “COMMON CARRIER”. Read the terms and understand what they mean. A taxi or a licenced chauffeur-driven limousine is usally considered to be a common carrier, someone’s private car – no.
 
In China, a licensed tour guide must be designated by a tour company. A money-oriented tour guide directly trading with the tourists is a kind of illegal travel business. Because a tour guide is not a legal entity, unable to hold responsibility for the tourists if something terrible happens. 
 
We are happy that people are quite different in deciding their way of travelling. Some don’t use Tripadvisor. Some dont’ only repy on Tripadvisor. But most people will use their own brain to decide how to travel, not just travel exactly as others say or some travel review websites say simply because you are unique!
 
Travelers are different from each other just they have mixed reviews about our tour company. But we will never stop to improve our service to keep as many people happy as possible.
 
Relax, after all, life is so beautiful!