VariArts Travel has just launched a new range of tours and travel services for the individual adventurer to the culturally engaged, luxury end market and corporate clients.
The ethos which drives VariArts Travel is that in the new ‘Age of China’, new tours and travel services are needed to delve behind the red curtain, so to really get an insider’s perspective of its incredibly modern metropolises and intriguing and ancient civilization.
Francis Hartnett and Lin Xu, are a new travel expert duo behind VariArts Travel and have ambitious plans to change the face of tourism in China. They believe it’s all about mixing the ‘local with a touch of luxury’. Hartnett recommends the best experiences are gained when “traveling in style yet staying grounded to local unpretentious experiences with everyday folks. You don’t want to travel the other side of the world to just meet someone staying in a hotel like yourself” he commented. “Our VariArts team all provide a special insight and include a former military officer, an opera director, a China veteran Wall Street Journal correspondent, a Buddhist monk, a local fashion designer and winemaker – these are the people who have remarkable first-hand experiences and an insider’s knowhow – that’s what we’re about”.
Lin Xu went on to add that her fondness of local designer stores, hand-made noodle haunts, out of the way galleries, boutique luxury hotels with a unique flair of their own and an appreciation of the ancient and modern were what excited her in pursuing a new range of services, style of tourism, and way of representing China to the world. For her it is important the tours mix the cosmopolitan of Chinese society, and the local with a sustainable approach to the environment and societally in use of small business in the communities they visit. “Tourism for us is supporting what’s unique and keeping it small scale, as non-touristy as possible”.
Services include ready to book travel itineraries, such as short and exciting trips through Shanghai and Beijing, others are more in-depth from a trek following the Red Army’s Long March, Marco Polo’s Silk Route or traipsing the Himalayas to the base camp of Mt Everest. They mix up lodgings between the luxury of the Ritz Carlton and boutique establishments like the Hotel Indigo or Langham and itineraries that include lunch with local families in nearby ‘hutongs’ or neighborhoods. “It’s fascinating, people are amazed” Xu and Hartnett both remark.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
