This is a common question that each traveler to Tibet should ask himself or herself before book a tour. Right now there are many Tibet tour websites. Normally Tibetan owned and Tibet based travel agencies have poor internet promotion skills than those few top ranking Chinese tour websites. Currently only 1 or 2 websites arranged more than 70% of the foreign travelers to Tibet each year. And the typical features of these websites included points below:
- They put some Tibetan people’s name on their websites as their TripAdvisor, writing blogs, answering questions, explaining client’s reviews on TripAdvisor review, frankly who knows they are Tibetan or Han Chinese or not.
- They spend big money on google advertisement to attract more than 60% of the total Tibet tour inquiries.
- They have the most departures for the 8 days Everest Group tours and each of their tours has 12 pax and even more but on their websites they only put the pax of Number “8”. These are downgraded Tibet travel services, eg. the Ganggyan Hotel is very basic (only good point is good location), if the group size goes to 12 pax, the net cost per person goes down sharply and travelers are raped off on prices. As insider’s point of view, those tours net cost could be as low as 450-500 USD per person at most. But each of the traveler paid more than double.
- The travel advisors are not based in Lhasa, but in Chengdu or somewhere in Guilin, or Xi’an.
- These websites are famous for fixed departure groups tours.
So if you really want to support a Lhasa based reliable Tibet travel agency, never choose any websites as explained above.
Well you should choose a local reliable Tibet travel agency with less or “0” google Ads spending?
The answer to this question is very simple:
- Each small travel agencies (especially the few Tibetan owned) focused more on Tibet travel service quality and the service is very individual and personal.
- The travel advisors are based in Lhasa, and know what is going on everyday in Tibet.
- With the decrease of the transport cost in Tibet, 4-6 or 8 pax really small size Tibet Everest group tour is with much higher quality.
- For private Tibet tour, normally Tibetan local travel websites sell sky high or very high prices than agency like Tibet Ctrip Travel Service or Tibet Travel Expert Service.
Why you should choose and book with Lhasa based and experienced agency who sells fairly lower prices?
- Everyone knows that, many overseas organizers or individual Tibetan culture or food related websites also sell tours to Tibet. These prices are of course the highest because they are not based in Lhasa and they would get high commission from the sells prices to local.
- There are only few agencies who still focus more on service quality and at the same time sell fairly lower prices. Tibet Ctrip Travel Service (another name is Tibet Travel Expert Service) is such one Lhasa based travel agency and tour operator.
Which kind of websites you should not trust when you book a Tibet tour?
- They claim the Tibet travel permits are “FREE” but they do not offer you permits without booking a tour. It means there must be tourists traps, at least it is not honest.
- The sites who claim the permits can be as expensive as US$200-300 USD per person. This is fake and sky high price for permits services.
Should you have any questions, please contact with our agency by email to or online Tibet tour inquiry.
