Since 1998, China Highlights has been a trusted expert in crafting private, tailor-made journeys across China. We go beyond sightseeing — helping travelers connect more deeply with China's nature, culture, and people. Our belief, “Highlights happen when we get closer,” reflects our commitment to creating meaningful, authentic experiences. From Beijing's Great Wall to the rivers of Guilin and the heritage of Xi'an, our dedicated travel designers and local hosts ensure every trip is personalized, stress-free, and inspiring. China Highlights is part of Highlights Travel, offering private journeys across Asia, including Japan, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, and India. Here's to more moments that bring us closer.
Reviewers overwhelmingly had a great experience with this company. Travelers frequently praise the dedicated team for creating highly personalized itineraries, noting that advisors remain exceptionally patient, responsive, and professional when organizing complex multi-city holidays. Consumers also deeply appreciate the seamless logistics, comfortable transport, and the outstanding assistance provided by knowledgeable local guides and drivers at every single destination.
Some reviewers were not happy with minor communication barriers regarding English proficiency, encountering an occasional distracted guide or receiving less detailed historical explanations during excursions. These specific issues with communication and guide engagement were occasionally noted by participants as areas requiring improvement.
Engaged China Highlights for an upcoming trip to Beijing and Xian. Roger Li was assigned to assist in helping with my itinerary and he was very responsive to my queries and requests. Am pleased with the pre-trip service so far. Would review again after the trip.
China Highlights 回复2024-03-02
Hi Florence
Thanks for using us to arrange your upcoming trip. We're encouraged to know you found Roger to be responsive to your queries and requests. Know that we you arrive, we are always on hand to assist. Take care
Customer-care Team
We contacted China Highlights at the very last minutes for our winter break and Amber, travel advisor did really great job with the travel arrangements and providing necessary formalities for very last minute Visa application. Our overall experience from the arrival in Beijing until the departure from Shanghai was above expectation. This includes the selected hotels, train and flights between cities, assigned guides, vans, drivers, halal restaurants and mainly the attractions. Only very few exceptions that needs to be improved to make an even better and more pleasant experience.
China Highlights 回复2024-01-29
Hi there
Thanks for posting your feedback and giving us your thoughts on your visit. We are glad that things went well, and if you have any further comments about how we can improve, please drop us an email. We always want to try and do our best to improve our services.
Customer-care Team
We used China Highlights to organise a 10 day tour of Beijing, Xian and Chengdu.
Maggie was very patient and knowledgeable in helping us plan what to visit and hotels to stay in.
China Highest organised the hotel bookings, airport/train station drop off and pick ups, train tickets, entrance tickets and lunch.
All the guides were friendly with a good level of English.
Special mention of Susan, our guide in Xian and Helen, our guide in Chengdu they were both fantastic.
They allowed us plenty of time to see the planned sites.
We would definitely use and recommend the company to anyone planning a tour of China.
China Highlights 回复2024-01-13
Hi there
Thanks for letting us know you found your tour to be well organized, guides friendly and everything went smooth. We appreciate your recommendation.
Customer-care Team
No regrets booking my trip to Harbin through China highlights Carol was professional and helpful Guide in Harbin Michael Zhang was helpful efficient and knowledgeable However his command of English could be improved Driver Mr Wang was excellent helpful and a cautious driver Hotel Jinggu was generally good with excellent breakfast Xueyuan hotel at snow town was good However breakfast was poor due to large tour groups having breakfast there The Xingu inn mid way to snow town was deplorable Room was terrible with no lighting in toilet no towels provided and breakfast was bad
China Highlights 回复2024-01-13
Hi there
Glad that you had no regrets about booking your visit to Harbin. We are sorry to learn that the breakfast at the hotel was not to standard at both the Xueyuan and Xingu Inn. We will follow-up with regards to the situation at the Xingu Inn and may not use the hotel again.
Customer-care Team
Fantastic 17 days experience with China Highlights
This is my first trip with China Highlights and it turns out to be a really fantastic experience for my family. It started of with a good pre-tour planning session with Riger Li; he is patient, flexible and experience in handling our trip plan. All done and happy with in just few days with great itinerary for 17 days trip covering Chengdu, ChongQing, Zhanjiajie and Changsha. Well done to Roger.
My family had a fantastic time in the 17 days trip with no major problem, well exceeded my expectation. Roger was responsive on questions regarding my trip along the way.
Helen (Fang Fang) is our guide in Chengdu and she is superb in taking care of our tour itinerary and also food preference; my family feel so comfortable with her and she did a fantastic job together with Ren Sifu as our driver. ZhangJiaJie is covered by our guide Bree and she did a good job too. Only minor problem is the hotel in Zhangjiajie is a bit under our expectation compared to other area (Best Western QingXinYuan Hotel & Days Hotel). Breakfast and facilities are just average; For Days Hotel, each guest only has one small bottle of water and you will be charged for an extra one; it is not the case for other hotel. It is just weird for me to hear that from a 4-star hotel.
ChongQing is covered by our guide June and Changsha is just a day tour on our own.
In overall, it is a good time for my family and I would choose China Highlights again for my upcoming trip.
China Highlights 回复2024-01-04
Hi Kenneth
Thanks for sharing about your visit to China with us. We're glad to know that your family had a fantastic time and we shall look forward to helping you again to explore more of this nation.
Customer-care Team
Lily, our tour guide, and the driver allowed us to easily travel from place to place with no worries what so ever. She was knowledgeable and the driver was always ready to pick us up. A pretty good experience. The only issue I have is the prices
China Highlights 回复2023-12-28
Hi there
Thanks for your feedback on our guide and driver. We were sorry to hear that you have issues with our prices. Our prices for private tours were outlined to you. If there was anything specific that you found troubling, please email us back.
Customer-care Team
Overall it was a good experience. I would use China Highlights again.
1. Planning: Carol was very flexible, accommodating, and patient with all the changes and requests. We have young children and seniors on this trip so a lot of changes and planning were needed. Communication was good given the time difference so make sure to give yourself plenty of time on the planning part.
2. Hotels: Great hotels and locations. We chose 5-star hotels and all the ones picked were good except for the last hotel in Beijing. It wasn't the best and I'd want to see other options from China Highlights. That hotel was a 4-star (could be less in my opinion) and I had requested 5-stars only. I don't know if that is an oversight or what was available. The location was great though.
3. Activities: This area needs some improvement. Some activities were either not open/available on the day that it was planned or not appropriate for my family. This is where the local tour guides really did a great job at last-minute changes or suggested other activities that would work better for my family. The local tour guides and drivers were truly amazing!
4. Locations: Guilin, Yangshou, Shanghai, Beijing
5. Execution: The final itinerary needs more information that would have helped foreigners. For example, bullet trains don't provide tickets. You use your passport to scan in. The seat location, train number, etc is with the agent and not provided until the last minute or sometimes not provided at all. This was a HUGE issue for us when we took the train from HK to Guilin. We almost missed our train because the information was not clear on how to get through the terminal, boarding information was different than the final itineray provided, many steps/paperwork to get through immigration. Another example is at Disneyland in Shanghai. I was told and confirmed that tickets were purchased but once we were there, tickets were not available. It caused about an hour delay at the ticket area for the agency to resolve the issue.
6. Communication/Emergency Response: Very quick and responsive from Carol and local tour guides but make sure that you have Wechat or local phone line otherwise this would have been very difficult.
China Highlights 回复2023-11-06
Hi Monica
Thank you for taking the time to write in detail and share about your experience. Firstly, we do apologize that the information sent to you regarding the HK train tickets and going through immigration was not detailed causing you unnecessary stress. Secondly, the tickets to Disneyland were an oversight and this should not have happened causing a delay in the entry of Disneyland.
Knowing the make-up of your group - the activities provided should have taken into consideration the age range, as well we should have rechecked if some of the activities were still available prior to your arrival. We were however encouraged to know that the guides were able to quickly adapt and make changes to accommodate the group.
We will endeavor to make changes and improve in these areas and to ensure that the next time you use our services, these will be corrected.
Customer-care Team
The Silk Road tour was great, good consultant, guides and drivers, especially Aman from Urumqi who was amazing with the details to the sites, history and culture in his explanation. The only problem I had was the hotel arrangements. Zhangye's Qianxi Silu International Hotel is far from the city center making exploring during free time difficult. Urumqi's Hai Tong Wu Xing Hotel is just a disaster, the room was dirty and in need of major repairs.
China Highlights 回复2023-11-06
Hi Osiris Man
Thank you for your feedback and that you had a great time exploring the Silk Road. We sincerely apologize that the hotels did not meet expectations and we will indeed follow-up on these hotels in the region.
Customer-care Team
CH has great local guides! They are all very knowledgeable and helpful. Martin was with us during our stay at Shanghai. He brought us to Shanghai Tower via J Hotel cafe at 120th floor to see the renown and spectacular sunset over the cityscapes! He listened and recommended us base on our liking on food and POI. At Suzhou, Anne never stops to amaze us with new information on the local and China culture and history. She is very helpful with my aged parents to meet their needs in sourcing for wheelchairs. Lulu has already provided me with information way before we arrived at Hangzhou and brought us to tea house to experience tea art. CH can be more efficient if they could communicate with the local guides to ensure a more seamless transition between cities.
China Highlights 回复2023-10-15
Hi there
Thank you for your feedback and for letting us know the performances of our guides. We're very sorry for any lack of communication with our guides to ensure a better transition between the cities. We endeavor to improve and make changes to ensure that all communication and transfers will go smoothly.
Customer-care Team
My family came to visit me in Beijing. I trusted chinahighlights to take care of them, as we always use their service when we travel around China.
Maggie set up a trip for my parents (70ish) by sent a lovely tour guide named Kitty. Kitty was very patient and took care my parents gently.
to. trustpilot, please stop deleting my reviews. as I am their real customer.
China Highlights 回复2023-09-25
Hi Nita
Thanks for sharing your experience here. We're pleased that you found Maggie and Kitty's service to be excellent and ensuring you were all well looked after.
Customer-care Team
Ms Maggie Jiang, our trip advisor was very helpful in organising our recent trip to Beijing. Her services was always very prompt. We were also well taken care of by our guide, Mark but not so pleasant experience with our driver who overslept on our last day. Nevertheless we had a memorable trip. Hope to visit other cities in the near future.
China Highlights 回复2023-09-25
Hi Stephanie
Thanks for sharing how you found our services in organising your Bejing trip. We're very sorry that our driver overslept and was late. When you visit with us again, we will ensure that this will not happen to you. Take care
Customer-care Team
Giulia was a great trip organiser.
We stayed only three days in Beijing but she managed to let us visit quite a lot, including the Great Wall.
Jennifer was our guide : extremely kind and helpful, she explained us history and facts related to all places we visited.
The only negative remark is for the bureaucracy linked to the temporary visa system : it took a lot of time at the airport to be cleared and my daughter (flying from Malaysia) had to buy a new ticket from Kuala Lumpur since she was not allowed to fly from Shenzen to Beijing!
China Highlights 回复2023-08-29
Hi there
Thanks for sharing about your time in Beijing. We're very sorry that you had a problem regarding the visa and your daughter having to buy a new ticket.
Despite that, we're glad you stillenjoyed your visit.
Customer-care Team
This is our second trip with China Highlights. Maggie as our travel consultant this time, has provided great services. From booking the tickets (train and plane), providing the customised itinerary and flexible term of payments. Lily as our tour guide also. She understands how to handle us as a family with little kids. The driver whom I don't know the name was driving carefully.
China Highlights 回复2023-05-17
Hi Nita, thank you for taking the time to share our experience. It was our pleasure to help you arrange your second trip with us, and we were pleased to know that you have been satisfied with our services, with both our travel advisor and tour guide. We look forward to assisting you again with more travels in China.
Customer-care Team
Inexperienced Trip Advisor who cancelled my Tibet Tour booking
I had booked several China tours with China Highlights last 20 years and was very satisfied with the tour advisor Leon. Now I sent inquiry for a 4 day guided tour to Tibet (3 day less than the adverized 8 day tour). I requested to have Leon to do this for me if he is still there, but there is a Vanessa Zheng who took the case. Initially I was fine with her arrangement, but after I paid my deposit to sign up with the tour, she started with these warning re: uncertainly of able to secure train and flight ticket even though I already looked into train booking on CH website and I could secure seat booking right away as soon as I paid by PayPal. Then she suddenly told me that my itinerary did not include tranfer from train or airport (I thought that was complimentary and included on itinerary in the 8 day tour posted on CH website and she told me if I want transfer service I have to pay additional USD300 (cny2000) for 2 persons). After I demand that she check with her supervisor re: this outrageous transfer charge she came back that supervisor would grant complimentary transfer and insisted that transfer fee was an option not included in my itinerary price although the itinerary did indicate clearly Price includes transfer fee..
Since she never gave me an itemized pricing of itinerary like other Tibet Tour Travel Agencies that gave us quotes for similar itinerary, and I lost trust in her pricing given to me and told me it included 5% discount for having travelled with CH in the past, I lost trust re: how my final price was calculated. In addition, if she does not even know that hotel transfer fee is complimentary to start with and want me to pay USD300 for 2 instead, I need to know whether she made any more mistake in the itinerary pricing calculation as I want only 5 night hotel and 4 day guided tour with 1 day in Lhasa to tour on our own. Also, she never sent me letters of confirmation of train and flight booking 10 days after I paid my deposit.
When I sent her the last email requesting that before I pay my final bablance, I want her to give me itemized pricing of my final itinerary to verify accuracy of her final pricing and the letters of confirmation which she said to be sent to me in 2 days after booking. She responded to tell me since I lost trust in her arrangement, she just cancelled my booking with China Highlight and would refund my deposit. So, like CH to respond how could you have such a trip advisor and would CH assign me another experienced agent for me. Unless she has something to hide in the itinerary itemized price, why she has a problem to send me these information? She is either incompetent or not honest.
China Highlights 回复2023-05-14
Dear Clara
We were disappointed to read your feedback on this platform after we had emailed and explained to you the situation. However, we understand that everyone has a right to express their grievances and personal views about their tour.
Firstly, as explained to you, your previous travel advisor, Leon has left the company. Anyone who leaves a company, their email account is automatically forwarded to another experienced travel advisor to handle the inquiry. Surely, you should be aware that this would happen as you work for a firm. As you state, it has been over 20 years since your last booking, however, people do move on.
To clarify some points, train tickets can only be purchased up to 15 days before the departure date – your booking is for July. This was explained to you. To explain clearly, China Highlights can accept booking requests months ahead, and as soon as reservations open, we will be able to purchase your tickets. All train ticketing rules are set by China Railways, and purchasing train tickets ahead of your dates may change according to their regulations.
Concerning the transfer – initially, in your first inquiry to us in April, you stated that you did not require a transfer. Therefore this was omitted from your itinerary. Your itinerary showed clearly which days private transfers were needed, and days when you had opted out as you wanted your own arrangements.
Our travel advisor noted that on the day you did not request a transfer, she asked if you would like to have a private transfer, as opposed to you taking an airport shuttle bus. This was offered and with the price, only as a suggestion, to which you were not obligated to accept this private transfer. Most private transfers are more expensive than an airport shuttle bus. However, you have constantly misunderstood this.
Our travel advisor has been upfront with you and has done her best to try and give you her full attention to your itinerary. She is very experienced and had taken a lot of her time to assist you. Yet, you have misunderstood her intentions, and your emails to her have been unpleasant and shown her disrespect.
As stated in your emails, you said you communicated that you were in communication with 2 other agencies, and they have provided you a detailed itemized pricing of your itinerary, as well they were cheaper than what we offered.
As you were not satisfied with our arrangements and showed disrespect to our travel advisor in your emails, our Company reserves the right to cancel a tour with a customer. Though this decision did not come lightly, we felt it was best overall to avoid any further misunderstanding and disrespect for any of our staff should we continue this arrangement. We have the right to protect our staff and their well-being.
We will not elaborate further as we will continue to talk in circles. Arrangements for your deposit to be refunded to you have been made on the first working day after the weekend.
We wish you all the best in your arrangements with whatever agency you decide to proceed with your trip and trust that it will go well.
Customer-care Team Management
Gansu Trip
We (4 people) asked China Highlights to help to organize our trip in Gansù. Our contact, Alisa-Liu, was very helpful, always available and fast to understand our needs. We had two drivers from Dunhuang to Zhangye (Mr. Wang and Mr. Chen), both very nice, friendly and helpful. Definitely we will travel with China Highlights again in the future.
China Highlights 回复2021-08-18
Hi there
Thanks for your post, letting us know that the trip was well organized. We shall look forward to assisting you again.
Customer-care Team
We just did a trip to Guilin with China highlights. This in the third trip we have done with them and they do deliver. Alysa our travel consultant understood what we needed and Henry knows Guilin well and is an a very good guide. Very pleasant experience and Guilin is sooo beautiul!
China Highlights 回复2021-05-18
Hi there
Thanks for your continued commitment allowing us to arrange your third trip to explore parts of China. We're pleased to know you had a pleasant time exploring this region. Look forward to assisting you again on your next China adventure.
Customer-care Team
Planned a last minute trip to Beijing. The tour was for the Great Wall (of course) and the Forbidden City. Unfortunately, the tour company was unable to get tickets to the Forbidden City - I was quite upset since this was a main part of the tour. However, the tour made up with a tour of the Summer Palace, the Drum Tower and the Temple of Heaven. Due to the pandemic, less tickets were sold to the Forbidden City and we made our plans to go to Beijing just a few days before we left. Had I known this was an issue, I would have planned better. And the tour company should have let me know prior to my purchasing the tour - which they did not. But I do feel they did everything they could to make it a great trip - and it was! The tour guide, Ivy, was very knowledgeable and shared so many great facts that we wouldn't have known just going by ourselves. The driver was always punctual, safe and very friendly! It was a great trip overall!
China Highlights 回复2020-11-12
Hi Robin
Thanks for taking the time to write sharing about your time in Beijing. We were very sorry that you were not informed earlier regarding the sale of the tickets to the Forbidden City and acknowledge that this should not had happened.
Customer-care Team
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