Agents and sub-agents
On the way your contacts in China cooperate - and sometimes
don't
China is too big. It is impossible for your agent to organize a complete tour, covering several parts of this enormous country, from his office in Beijing, Shanghai, or Xian. He depends on local sub-agents in the provinces, and they in turn often rely on yet another layer of their own sub-agents. Sub-agents make most arrangements for your tour. They book hotels and provide transportation in their region. They also arrange train tickets - there is still no national railway booking system in China. Reservations can only be made at the point of origin of a train, and a couple of places along its route.
As his sub-agents an agent will choose his 'guanxi', his connections: friends, friends of friends, family members, former classmates. The guanxi-system is a major pillar of Chinese society . When you need help you call on your guanxi. When in turn your guanxi call on you, you help them out. "I''ll call my friend" is what you often hear in China, when someone momentarily cannot answer to a question or request. People in the West also 'network'. But being someone's guanxi in China means a stronger bond than being in someone's network in the West. You will find that this system brings perfect results. Your tours will run smoothly. You will never even notice there are sub-agents at work who in fact make most arrangements for your tours. Everybody involved will do a proper job, as nobody wants to let his guanxi down.
Only sometimes... your tourists may travel to places where your agent has no guanxi. He then will find somebody else to act as a sub-agent. But not belonging to someone's guanxi in China means one is more of an outsider, than an outsider who is not part of someone's network in the West. There may be far less respect and trust between agent and sub-agent, than there is in a normal business relationship in the West. This is where your problems start.
As a tourleader I have met with any kind of bad service by sub-agents. They have tried to make me stay in appalling hotels, ridiculously overpriced at that. They have supplied me with bad busses. Their drivers have tried to drop my group of at the wrong hotel, because that was where they had to pick up another group. Just as well, the root of the problem may not be the sub-agent but the agent himself, who simply may not pay his bills. I have repeatedly been in situations where a sub-agent refused to hand me plane tickets to continue a tour, because he had for months already taken care of our groups without being paid. Each time things were only solved after hectic negotiations and instant payments by either the agent or the European head office.
There are no guidelines on how to avoid these problems. But in places where they occur, you can decide to deal with the sub-agent directly from your head office.