The new trend in tourism here is to provide more extensive China tours. Everyday another tour operator springs forward into life, many of them offering similar services and competitive prices. As always, investigation on the internet is the best way to determine what exactly you want and should expect from any guided tour.
The most common China tours are found in the major cities and tourist attractions across the country. The most popular city for a guided tour is Beijing, where there are hundreds of historical sights to seek out – though transportation throughout the city is fairly convenient, the small hassles of travel send many visitors into the arms of guided and package tours, who usually solve transportation issues, manage schedules and often offer discount prices into a number of major tourist attractions. Cheap China tours are still a thing of the future, however. Despite the competition, there seems to be an unwritten agreement that tour operators do not stray to far into discounted territory, so don't get too upset if the cost is higher than you'd expect.
The best you can do, as far as cheap China tours, are often located far away from the main tourist areas. The breadth of Central China, which has to struggle (comparatively) to match the draw of southern and eastern China and Tibet, is a good place to start when looking for discount tours.
Tours of China are often a section on a far more broad Asian tour. Combining its attractions with those of Korea or Japan or Mongolia is an easy way for many tour operators to bring in more revenue. Tours incorporating both South Korea and the Chinese mainland are the most popular of these China Tours.
Seeing the southern regions of the country, primarily Hong Kong and Macau along with scenic Guangdong and Guangxi is one of the best China tours, especially for those who feel seeing all of China in one fell swoop is too imposing a task. This way you get some of the most majestic natural scenery along with the packed bars and swollen casinos located in Hong Kong and Macau.
The giant pandas are truly one of China's most valuable treasures, making Panda tours in China a popular, if often misguided, tour option. Since the three best places to see these gentle creatures are well spread out, most of the operators offering Panda tours in China concentrate on only one location – if witnessing the giant panda in its natural habitat is a must, a self-guided tour is usually your best bet. The Chengdu Zoo has a handful of pandas, but it is clearly overshadowed by the nearby Giant Panda Breeding Research Base. For animal lovers, this is the pinnacle of any of the possible Panda tours in China. By far the most humane and respected of where pandas live in captivity, there are usually about a dozen bears (depending on the previous summer's birth rate) allowed to roam freely throughout the base's enclosure. China tours revolving around the sight of pandas can also be found in the Wolong Nature Reserve, about 90 miles away – though, unlike the Research base in Chengdu, the pandas are not the sole focus here. Pretty much any zoo throughout the country will have a couple of panda bears on display, with the Beijing Zoo being the most visited.
