Hello everyone, I'm Edward, the founder of ChinaRoadtrips. I've been in the inbound tourism industry for 13 years, working as a department manager and partner in some well-established Overland tour companies.
Before getting to know us better, I would like to share, based on my years of experience in the industry, the current situation of China Overland Tours and pain points for guests who come to China for an overland tour.
The Chinese government has relaxed visa restrictions and limitations on foreign-related hotels in the past one or two years, hoping to welcome more foreigners to travel and understand the diverse aspects of China. This is beneficial for many independent travelers, such as backpackers and cyclists.
However, China's overland tours still face some challenges that hinder the pace of many overlanders exploring China. Based on my years of experience operating China overland tours and feedback from guests, I have summarized the following current situation and consumer pain points.
The need for a travel agency's help for a China Overland Tour makes the expense quite high, which deters many overlanders and even leads some to give up on China. I find this regrettable because China's diverse landscapes and cultures from north to south and west to east make it a paradise for overlanders.
Now, overlanders coming to China are not just retired or well-off middle-aged and elderly people as they were 5-15 years ago. A clear change is that more young people are hitting the road in old cars or RVs to live life and experience the world. They don't care about the age of their vehicles or the amount of savings they have. I admire this group of travelers who love freedom, are brave to explore and experience, and have limited budgets.
Unfortunately, due to budget constraints, some give up on China altogether, while others have to wait for a large group to form to reduce costs. The larger the group, the higher the profit for the travel agency, but the overlanding experience suffers. To wait for a convoy of more than 5 or even 10 vehicles means spending more time helping the agency promote and attract more overlanders to share the costs. If there aren't enough vehicles, the wait is longer, and if the number falls short, the costs are higher. Even if the expected number of vehicles is met, more vehicles mean less flexibility. Due to differences in vehicles and the varying habits and interests of the members, your overland travel experience may not be great. The more vehicles in a group, the more compromises each member has to make, which I believe our previous guests have experienced.
Additionally, for tour groups that do not provide a passenger seat for the guide, the travel agency will also dispatch a separate vehicle to carry the guide, and this significant cost will be apportioned among every member. Even if there is a seat provided for the guide within the group, the overlander offering the seat will undoubtedly sacrifice their own freedom and comfort.
The homogenized, procedural, and oversimplified services of many travel agencies fail to provide tourists with a deeper experience of China. Due to Chinese policy restrictions, overlanders entering China by land must seek assistance from travel agencies for vehicle customs clearance, obtaining driver's licenses, submitting documents for departmental permits, and so on. Additionally, there are not many Chinese travel agencies capable of handling inbound overland tours. Early entrants in this industry have been making easy money, largely due to the spread of overlanders on social media, and of course, they prefer to do as little as possible, not going out of their way to provide extra services.
For example, to reduce costs, itineraries are quite tight, mostly focused on traveling, with only 1-3 days reserved for non-driving activities throughout the entire trip.
The travel agency's services typically end with helping guests enter and exit China smoothly, and the guide's role is to assist with navigation, ticket purchases, hotel bookings, and finding restaurants. However, such monotonous and dull service content doesn't differ much from a bus tour, aside from the fact that the guests are driving themselves. I believe that since travel agencies charge high fees, they should offer a richer range of services, making guests feel that their money is well spent, rather than it being a reluctant choice.
The first few Chinese travel agencies to offer overland tours have gained wider dissemination and have formed a de facto monopoly. Travel agencies that do not have sufficient competition and hold a dominant market position have no incentive or desire to offer price reductions or improve services. The most evident manifestation is that all travel agencies require full payment before guests enter China, and there are no clauses for compensating consumers for substandard services. These are all coercive terms due to a lack of competition. This also leads to many tourists choosing only one or two travel agencies with a reputation on social media to ensure the safety of their funds. Due to the information gap, there are very few travel agencies in this business to begin with, and as a result, overlanders coming to China, driven by a herd and cautionary mentality, will almost exclusively choose the one or two most well-known agencies. This makes it difficult for new travel agency brands to survive. Therefore, this leads to the two current situations I mentioned being hard to change, and for overlanders, it enters a vicious cycle where you hardly have any "bargaining power."
I have been dedicated to route design and team operations, focusing more on customers' travel experiences in China. I have led foreign student teams on numerous volunteer activities in remote Chinese schools, taken foreign tourists on hikes through China's snow-capped mountains and grasslands, and guided overlanders from many countries on driving tours across China. With years of experience, I have traveled through various parts of China, understanding the landscapes and cultures, as well as the needs of our guests. I am passionate about my industry and wish for more foreign visitors to experience the real, hidden China. To this end, I have often waived visa application assistance fees and consultation fees for budget-conscious backpackers and cyclists.