All of our guides can provide expert advice and the following services about shopping, dining and entertainment, they can actually do all of the following for you:

1. Tour guide: extended knowledge on Beijing history, culture, transportation and tourist sites.

2. Shopping guide: offer the best Beijing shopping solutions, give you advice on purchases and assist in bargaining.

3. Dining guide: Transportation from your hotel, provide information on Beijing cuisines and restaurants, assist you in ordering dishes, suggest activities in the area and best transport home.

4. Entertaining guide: offer their advices on entertainment and nightlife activities, assist in your transportation and communication.

Tour guides are responsible for conducting tours and expeditions organized by tour operators for which they work. They take the tours of historical places, famous buildings, natural landscape, temples and theme parks. In the course of the tours, tour and travel guides describe points of interest, answer questions and offer background information on interesting attractions. Tour guides are usually employed by tour operators.

In China, to be a licensed tour guide, you must attend the annual national tour guide certificate examination sponsored by our China National Tourism Administation. If you pass the examination, you will get the tour guide certificate from the tourism authorities concerned. In addition, to be a legal tour guide, you have to register at a travel agency or local tour guide management company. Most of the tour guide management companies have some official background. After your registration, you will get a tour guide IC card ( or tour guide offcial permit ) from the local tourism administration. Tour guides are requested to hang their IC card around their necks when they escort tourist.

A licensed and legal tour guide should have two things – IC card and formal reception plan from the travel agency for which she or he works.
A formal reception plan is actually a travel plan or tour confirmation between a travel agency and the tourist.

A freelance tour guide is a tour guide who doesn’t only work for one registered travel agency. They jump from one travel agency to another. They are not tied to only one travel agency, something like a guerrilla! A freelance tour guide is a licensed and legal tour guide. So they also have two things: tour guide IC card and travel plan from a travel agency.

If a licensed tour guide directly organize a tour and also conduct the tour, she or he is a self-employed tour guide. A self-employed guide is also a licensed and registered tour guide. But they don’t work for their registered tour operators or tour guide management companies. They work for themselves covertly and contact the potential clients by using some low-cost sales channels like web forums, phone calls, direct encounter at some scenic areas. Some self-employed tour guides even make a simple travel website and contact the internet travellers directly! We kindly suggest you avoid using a self-employed tour guide. It is not safe to put yourself in the hand of a single self-employed tour and travel guide. It is against Chins’s law.

It is quite easy to tell an illegal tour guide. An illegal tour guide has neither IC card nor travel plan from a travel agency. They, just like self-employed tour guides, touch the tourists directly by using some low-cost sales channels like web forums, phone calls, direct encounter at some scenic areas. Some trendy illegal tour guides also make a simple travel website and contact the internet travellers directly! You are kindly advised not to use their services even though their service charges are much lower maybe. To put yourself in the hand of an illegal tour guide is dangerous!

So avoid using self-employed tour guides, keep from illegal tour guides. Pay a little more for safety by locating a legitimate tour operator for licensed and legal tour guides.