Our Brand · Our Team

Four partners, thirty senior guides, sixty city coordinators

ChinaTourly is operated by four founding partners with complementary expertise, supported by 30+ retained senior guides each carrying 7+ years of practice in their working city, and city-level dispatch coordinators in every region we operate. This is the operating team that shows up on every booking.

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  • 4Founding partners
  • 30+Senior guides
  • 7+ yearsPer guide
How the team works

Three operating layers, each with a person you can name

Every ChinaTourly journey is touched by three teams. The four founding partners — each of them seasoned solo travellers before the brand existed — own brand direction and quality. A retained senior guide network delivers the trip in working cities. City-coordinator teams handle regional logistics. This page introduces all three layers and the four founders' personal travel backgrounds.

Layer 1 · Four founding partners. Before they founded ChinaTourly, each of the four was a seasoned independent traveller of inland China — eight years in the western desert (Mr He), six years living between Jiangnan canal towns (Mr Zhao), five years across Yunnan's 25 ethnic groups (Ms Li), and 6,000 km on foot along the Tea Horse Road (Mr Xu). The brand is built on their personal relationships, not on contracted intermediaries.

Layer 2 · 30+ retained senior guides distributed across Beijing, Shanghai, Tibet, Sichuan, Yunnan, Xi'an, Guilin, Suzhou, Hangzhou, and Jingdezhen. Threshold of 7+ years of practice in working city for solo assignment. Two-year apprenticeship before that. Retainer-based — not commission-driven freelancers swapped between operators.

Layer 3 · City-level dispatch coordinators in every region we operate (60+ Chinese cities through the parent group). Handles hotel inventory, transport coordination, restaurant reservations, ICH master scheduling, force-majeure recovery.

Named people. Direct accountability. No subcontracted faceless agencies.

What '7 years' actually means

Why this threshold matters.

30+ senior guides on retainer, not freelance
Why our guides stay

30+ senior guides on retainer, not freelance

Most Chinese tour operators run commission-driven freelance guides — a guide takes a group from operator A this week, operator B next week, operator C the week after. Guide quality stays inconsistent because there's no long-term retention. ChinaTourly's 30+ guides are on retainer, meaning they're paid a base regardless of trip volume. They develop the cultural fluency that only comes from years in a single working city. They become the people who know which Mutianyu cable-car operator opens early, which Lhasa monastery cook will sit with a curious guest, which Suzhou garden chief will open the western section for our travellers.

Two-year apprenticeship + 7-year solo threshold = typical 9+ years total practice when assigned to a ChinaTourly route.

Open Insider Tips

The four founders · their travel backgrounds

Before they founded ChinaTourly. Surnames only by founder preference.

Mr He · Walker of the western desert

From eight years across China's deserts

Tibet · Xinjiang · Inner Mongolia

Before joining the inbound team, Mr He spent eight years travelling the Tibetan Plateau, the Taklamakan corridor, and the Inner Mongolian grasslands as a solo backpacker. He has slept in nomad gers in five different provinces. His personal route maps — drawn by hand over a decade — became the basis for several ChinaTourly Bespoke designs.

  • 8 years western route experience
  • Personal nomad-host relationships
  • Tibetan + Mongolian cultural fluency
Mr Zhao · Coastal & Jiangnan specialist

Six years walking Jiangnan canal towns

Suzhou · Hangzhou · Yangzhou · Wuxi

Mr Zhao spent six years living between Suzhou and Hangzhou, walking every classical garden, every canal town, every Mingqian tea field in season. He cataloged 47 lesser-known tea masters before the team formed. His introductions are why guests sit with fourth-generation Longjing producers and Su-style embroiderers most operators cannot access.

  • 6 years Jiangnan residency
  • 47 tea master relationships catalogued
  • Direct embroidery atelier access
Ms Li · Yunnan & ethnic-minority routes

Five years across 25 Yunnan ethnic groups

Lijiang · Shangri-La · Yuanyang · Xishuangbanna

Ms Li travelled Yunnan for five years before the team formed. She has shared meals in Naxi, Bai, Hani, Yi, Dai, and Mosuo communities. She speaks conversational Naxi. Her family-host relationships in ethnic-minority villages are why ChinaTourly Yunnan Multi-Landscape routes can include real homestay segments without the usual tourist staging.

  • 5 years across 25 ethnic groups
  • Conversational Naxi language
  • Direct ethnic-minority family-host network
Mr Xu · Founder · Tea Horse Road walker

6,000 km on foot in 2014 — the brand's origin walk

Yunnan · Sichuan · Tibet · Inner Mongolia

Inner Mongolia-born. In 2014-2015 Mr Xu walked 6,000 km following the historical Tea Horse Road on foot — through Yunnan tea highlands, the eastern Sichuan-Tibet corridor, Mongolian grasslands. Two years of solo walking produced the supplier relationships, the ICH master network, and the slow-luxury Aman-tier coordination that the brand sells today.

  • 6,000 km on foot 2014-2015
  • ICH master network from personal visits
  • Slow-luxury Aman-tier coordination

Read next

Adjacent brand pages.

Our Story
READ NEXT

Our Story

How four partners + a 6,000 km walk became ChinaTourly.

Brand background

Open story
Insider Tips
READ NEXT

Insider Tips

What our senior guides tell clients on Day 1.

Field intel

Open page
Our Approach
READ NEXT

Our Approach

Five design axes shaping every brief.

Method

Open page
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