Budget Travel

China a cheap, fascinating choice

By ARTHUR FROMMER

Sunday, July 4, 2004

If I were asked to name all the "safe" international destinations, I'd probably provoke an argument: My list would number in the hundreds. But no one would dispute my choice of China.

In that highly organized country, with its rigid police controls, it's so unlikely that foreign terrorists would be on the loose that a large number of vacationers choose it for that very reason. China is an exceedingly popular, and refreshingly cheap, place to visit.

Two long-established American tour operators -- one in New York, the other in San Francisco -- are offering air-land packages to China at stunningly low rates.

Admittedly, both achieve their bargain costs by combining passengers into escorted groups, but group arrangements are what most Americans will prefer for a visit to China, where the language barrier can be daunting.

The New York firm, with air-land packages from both New York and Los Angeles, is the 7-year-old Champion Holidays, whose program is solely to China and is supported by a full-time, wholly owned office in Beijing.

Its current bookings, according to president Steve Xu, are up by more than 50% over peak months in 2002 and 2003.

It is particularly proud that even its lowest-spending passengers fly not simply from Los Angeles, but can, if they wish, go non-stop from New York to and from Beijing and Shanghai (around 13 hours each way in an Air China Boeing 747) at bargain rates only $100 more than the price from Los Angeles.

While Champion Holidays operates a half-dozen leisurely tours of two and three weeks' duration, using at least four-star hotels, its most exciting products are its three "price buster" packages costing $899 to $1,099 in fall (starting September) and winter.

For those amounts, you receive round-trip air between the United States and China, all transportation within China, accommodations for seven to nine nights in superior first-class hotels, three meals daily, escorted sightseeing daily and occasional evening entertainment or lavish banquet dinners (Peking duck) in your choice of (a) Beijing, Wuxi, Suzhou and Shanghai; (b) Beijing, Nanjing, Wuxi, Grand Canal Cruise, Suzhou and Shanghai; or (c) Beijing, Xian, Wuxi, Suzhou and Shanghai.

The San Francisco firm, with flights to China from San Francisco only (or via connecting flights to San Francisco from dozens of other U.S. cities), is the 14-year-old China Focus.