This page is China Travel Tips for your trip.Group travel is the major mode of tourism in China. Preformed groups, traveling on a fixed itinerary and adhering to planned daily activities-including packaged sightseeing, dining, and hotel arrangements-make the most efficient use of China’s limited tourist and travel facilities. Despite the apparent limitations of moving about in the company of ZO or 30other travelers, China tour groups undoubtedly see more of the country-and at a lower cost-than would be possible on an unplanned, individual jaunt through the country. Even for local Chinese, travel within China is a formidable undertaking, with endless hours spent on getting travel information, on purchasing tickets, and on travel time itself. To these endemic problems, the foreign traveler must add the complications of pursuing these arrangements without much in the way of bilingual assistance or advice and must be prepared to arrive at a given destination without any advanced assurance of private transportation, a hotel room, or even a bilingual sightseeing program.

Today, travelers seeking to visit China as tourists may do so simply by purchasing space from one of the hundreds of travel agents around the world now authorized to form China tour groups. For those willing to travel as part of an organized tour, the procedures are no more complex than for any long-range excursion. In some ways they are simpler, since all itineraries, hotels, meals, and sightseeing arrangements are included in the package and are standard for all participants in a given tour.

Genuine savings can accrue for China travelers choosing the group option; Depending on the package selected, group participants may save more than 50% of the cost they could expect to pay were they to follow the same route on their own. Moreover, savings in time and energy in China are not to be overlooked: the provision of prebooked hotel space, scheduled sightseeing programs, intercity transfers, dining plans, and ubiquitous attention from Chinese guides and interpreters can spare the China visitor several hours a day that might otherwise be expended on logistical hassles. It may well require another decade at least for China to build up a travel infrastructure and service sector capable of accommodating large numbers of individual foreign travelers. Until then, group travel will continue to offer a rational alternative for getting a look at China.

Indeed, most travelers in the 1980s will continue to visit China as part of a prearranged, organized tour group.

Groups usually consist of between 12 and 50 people and follow a fixed itinerary that includes from three to six cities. Tours spend as little as two days to as much as four weeks in China; in addition, most flight schedules include stopovers in Tokyo, Hong Kong, or other cities in Asia.