Pioneering the Concept of a "Traveling Concierge"
Each of our small-group and Ultimate China private tours are accompanied by both a local guide and a Western, bilingual Imperial Tours “China Host” who has lived in China for at least five years. While guides are specific to their individual cities, China Hosts serve throughout through the entire trip.

Your China Host will act as a cultural bridge to help translate the mysteries and contradictions of Chinese traditions and society, coordinate flawless logistics, and function as your on-site concierge to ensure superior quality and service. While the impact a China Host can have on a tour is limitless, select highlights of past support include:

• Translating high-level, nationally televised discussions between a provincial leader and a senatorial guest.
• Spontaneously organizing a soccer match between a visiting family and some local villagers in Guilin.
• Acting as a personal shopper: "where is the best place for me to buy silk cushions in Shanghai."
• Coordinating a visit to a new state-of-the-art nuclear power plant near Beijing.
• Arranging for a guest to go skiing in Shanghai during the middle of summer.

Our China Hosts between them speak languages as varied as Danish, Romansch and Korean. Although we customarily provide English language tours, we can customize tours for other languages, particularly German, Spanish and French so that excellence is not restrained at the tips of our guests' tongues.

"At the end of the day we pulled him aside and expressed our concern. By dinner, he told us that he already arranged for a new guide to take over in the morning, it was delightful!” – EW, Washington D.C.

Our China Hosts:

It is comparatively rare to find an academic who handles the intricacies of Chinese grammar as confidently as the steering of a heavy goods vehicle: Dr Jamie Greenbaum is a breath of fresh air in the bookish world of academia. This unpretentious sinologist, as suavely poised with a billiards cue as he is elegant with a calligraphy brush, is without pride or artifice in providing access to his treasure chest of Chinese knowledge. While not tutoring, lecturing or translating, Jamie has participated as a lecturer and tour director in a number of tours across China most notably for Oxford and Cambridge Universities.

Nadia, who is half-Swiss, half-Chinese, grew up in Bangkok. Apart from English and Chinese, she is a speaker of Thai and Romansch (the latter comprising one of Switzerland's four national languages). She has a Masters in Public Administration from New York University, specializing in international non-profit management and policy, and has worked at various multilateral agencies and NGO's in Thailand and China focusing on issues including HIV/AIDs, microfinance and gender. In this capacity, Nadia has been introduced to lesser known aspects of Chinese society with experience ranging from access to financial services among the poor, to the challenges facing city orphanages to controlling the spread of HIV.

Benjamin has one of the world’s longest commutes between his home in Bogotá, Colombia, where he is a part-time lecturer in the University Chinese studies program and Beijing, China. German–English by origin and bilingual in these languages, Benjamin also speaks excellent Spanish, French and Mandarin Chinese. After graduating from Durham and London Universities, Benjamin began his working life at Christie’s Auction House where he appraised Chinese decorative art pieces before rising to work as an Auctioneer. After a few years, the temptation of China lured him from London to managing a boutique porcelain company in Jingdezhen, the workaday center of China’s ceramics industry, since which his interests in China have diversified into all areas of Chinese life. An instinctive mediator of culture, Benjamin has had his own radio program in Spanish to introduce China to a Colombian audience.

Valeria hails from Savoy region of the Italian Alps on the border with France. She speaks native-level French and Italian, excellent English and wonderful Mandarin Chinese. Central European linguists are so irritatingly gifted! Her passion for the scenery of her homeland has led her to deepen her knowledge of China 's less traveled paths, particularly in the westerly provinces of Sichuan and Yunnan , where she lived and studied for a significant period. Previously working for an Italian incentive house, Valeria's future undoubtedly lies in the Chinese tourism industry.

Having hosted museum and alumni trips across the Asian continent for over ten years, Nic is as comfortable drinking brick tea in an Uzbek tea house in Bukhara as he is sampling Chinese chrysanthemum tea in a Daoist temple in Hangzhou. Following his recent marriage to a beautiful Fujianese, this professional peregrinator is temporarily limiting the scope of his sorties to China's borders while, in his spare time, he works on his travel photography and second novel.

Fluent in six languages with working knowledge of another seven, India is our most multi-lingual tour director. Ethnically Chinese, raised in Denmark and educated in Italy and China, India is a cosmopolitan mediator of Chinese culture. When the Middle Kingdom appears confusing, India is on hand to explain the whys & wherefores of this exotic nation. India previously worked for many years in China's health sector; taking care of people is an intrinsic part of her nature. Having recently founded a very popular design company in Beijing, India has less time these days to host tours.

Born to Spanish and English parents, Jordi was raised in Majorca, Spain and educated at London University where he read Chinese Studies. As a result, his Spanish and English are native level and his Mandarin Chinese is fluent. Growing up on the beautiful island of Majorca, he frequently worked in his uncle's hospitality and tour operator businesses, and has quickly adapted to the role of China Host with excellent feedback from both Spanish and English speaking customers.

As a board member of Kershanghai, Gwenola has brought her homeland of Brittany, a beautiful, windswept region of northwestern France to cosmopolitan Shanghai, where she has resided for nearly five years.  A natural linguist, Gwen opted to explore China rather than pursue her original career teaching German in secondary school.  As comfortable in English and German and of course her native French as she is in Chinese, when she is not on the road with Imperial Tours, Gwen is hiking a trail through stunning landscapes all over the world.  As well as crossing many mountain ranges in China - from Guilin's karst spires to Huangshan's granite tusks - Gwen has trekked the four continents from the Inca trail in Peru to the Gunung Rinjani in Indonesia.

Pere's home city, Barcelona , has inspired some of the world's most original thinkers from Gaudi to Dali. The sea breezes and vivid colors of coastal Catalonia infect riverinos with a unique passion for living. This is the charm with which Pere imbues the hospitality industry where he has worked for many years from Barcelona 's Ramblas to Shanghai 's Bund. While Pere's ambition is to combine his creativity and experience in a boutique hotel, we are grateful that for the present Imperial Tours' guests benefit from his accommodating, earnest and sympathetic approach.

For feedback from past guests about our tours and China Hosts, please click here.
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