Going beyond tourism

A participant of EcoAction's giant panda tour feeds a giant panda as a volunteer at the Bifengxia Giant Panda Breeding Center in Sichuan. [Photos Provided To China Daily]

Not cheap

A typical product, such as the elephant tour or the giant panda tour, is a 7-9 day package with 15 participants and charges about 9,000 yuan per person, not including air fares.

"Our tours are not cheap, because we need to pay for experts' lectures and guiding services and we will also give back part of the income to the local communities," Luo says.

For example, the company pays more than 20,000 yuan to the head of Daoying village within the Yinggeling National Nature Reserve. The village head arranges for villagers to participate in the tour, some as motorcycle drivers, others as tour guides, some to cook for the group and others to provide free boarding to the visitors.

"After paying for these people's services, we ask the village head to use the surplus to improve the village's infrastructure and make public how the funds have been used to other villagers."

In Beijing, EcoAction promotes one-day nature education excursion among the city's schools and its star product is the bird watching tour.

Townshend, a native Englishman living in Beijing, is the tour leader. Townshend is a bird watcher with birding experience of more than 30 years and started a blog called "Birding Beijing" since he came to the city in 2010. He has spearheaded efforts to save some of China's most endangered birds. In 2012 the 44-year-old became a Species Champion with BirdLife International.

Besides guiding the birding tour, he led the Hainan tour in early this year together with Luo Peng and gave free lectures about bird watching in schools in Beijing. "Speaking to Chinese children, I hope to inspire them to develop a lifelong interest in nature. They are tomorrow's decision-makers and if the natural world is deeply-rooted, they will make the best decisions for China and its environment," Townshend says.

Now working as a freelance consultant in the field of environmental regulation, Townshend says he will like to become a full-time employee of the company. For Luo Peng, her eco-tourism business is a big challenge. "Our business is quite promising. But we need to get more people know of our tours."