Archive for June, 2008
June 29, 2008 at 6:06 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Knowledge and Experiences, Tourism, Business Climate
This article published this last week on Yahoo, entitled Olympics could be a bust for Beijing hotels, confirms many of my predictions:
China has spent a reported $40 billion on new infrastructure and stunning venues, hoping to impress visitors with a modern city when the games begin Aug. 8. But the lack of reservations could shake the city’s hotel industry, which has more than doubled its five- and four-star hotels offerings to 160 since Beijing was awarded the Olympics seven years ago.
Ha declined to reveal his hotel’s occupancy rate, but he expressed concern over a report last month from the Beijing Tourism Bureau that showed five-star hotels were 77 percent booked, and four stars were at 44 percent.
Well, the occupancy rate was higher than I’d heard, but still not great when you consider,
Some five-star hotels are in good shape — at least during the Olympics — because they secured reservations from Olympic sponsors or Olympic committee delegations.
[…]
“They need to come, and they have no choice to turn back now,” Sander said. “They have put so much money down, they cannot draw back.”
Even all the greedy apartment owners are finding themselves not only without sky high Olympics rentals, but with no tenants at all.
In response to questions about visas,
“Beijingers will enthusiastically welcome foreign tourists,” said Zhang Huiguang, director of the Beijing Tourism Bureau. “But for terrorists and troublemakers, we’ll unite and fight against them.”
I like the use of the term ‘troublemakers.’ China is openly acknowledging they’re not just worried about terrorists but also about protecting their image. As such,
Students have been targeted too, because the government fears they might side with political activists if protests erupt during the games.
Anyway, just read the article, and if you have Olympics tickets (or know someone who does) but aren’t going to use them, I’m already here and I’m happy to buy them from you!
June 27, 2008 at 11:15 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
This is an interesting characterization of the Chinese people by comparison to the Russian people:
[Travel writer, Colin] Thubron believes that no nation could be less like the pragmatic Chinese than the eternally abstract Russians. - That’s Shanghai
I like the ability to summarize entire nations of people in 1 word descriptions.
Chinese = pragmatic - Practical, concerned with making decisions and actions that are useful in practice, not just theory (Wikipedia)
Russians = abstract - thought of apart from concrete realities, specific objects, or actual instances (dictionary.com)
Do you agree with these characterizations? If they are accurate, it helps explain why the Chinese and Russians have had such a hard time working together.
June 21, 2008 at 2:44 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Knowledge and Experiences
This week before the China release of Dreamworks popular new film, Kung Fu Panda, an artist named Zhao Bandi and two friends protested outside the Beijing State Administration of Radio Film and Television offices. These blogs broke the story (in English) and while they were interested in laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation, I’m more interested in Zhao’s motivation. China Media Blog suggested a possible motivation: “[…]I hate to see a national tragedy used by someone to pump up his own name.” That’s a reasonable theory, since Zhao is an artist who often portrays pandas in his works, he would want to draw attention to his own works.
But I have another theory…While China is so busy crushing dissent behind the scenes, why not manifest a protest over something extremely silly but still controversial among China’s netizens as a way of showing that China tolerates protesters. Just to further hammer home the point, show that a government ministry is willing to meet with protesters and to negotiate with them! Perfect! You have the makings a wonderful show piece for the global media and human rights activists who say: “the Chinese Government’s repression has rapidly upgraded, in an effort to make sure there is no dissident voices from the people during the 2008 Olympics.” Now China can claim, we tolerate protesters and we negotiate with them.
Win-win situation: Chinese government gets positive coverage and Zhao gets attention for his artwork.
Side note: Even though the official release of Kung Fu Panda was Friday, June 20th, many of my colleagues had already seen the movie and spent the whole week laughing and talking about it.
June 21, 2008 at 1:35 am · Filed under Uncategorized, Tourism
We all know the China visa situation has gotten worse, it is now beyond desperate. Travelers to China, be warned. To start, a few visa stories from friends and friends of friends. One girl I know paid 9,540 yuan for a 6-month, single entry tourist visa–that’s about US$1400. She must really love China. Two other people I know who are transitioning from L (tourist visas) to Z (work visas), would previously have only been required to take a short 2-day trip to HK to do the change over, now they must travel to their home country for at least 5 days to apply at the consulate there. Even then, its not guaranteed; they must bring documentation of previous Chinese visas, apartment lease contract, and temporary residence form with them to the Consulate. For those honestly applying for tourists visas from their home countries, they now need to show proof of round-trip flight tickets and hotel reservations. Given that my friend’s friend is going to stay at her house, she had no intention of booking a hotel–lucky for cancellation policies! Another friend, visa having expired, flew to Hong Kong to get a new one, and what did they give him? 7-day tourist visa–just long enough to pack your things and leave the country for good. (You have to imagine China smugly laughing as the guy walks away from the counter dejected over his essentially worthless visa.)
A guy who was able to get a visa to China, and recently visited Shanghai and Beijing for the first time told me Beijing seemed ’sterile’ compared to Shanghai. Maybe the government has done too good of a job of ‘cleaning up’ the city and also of spreading rumors of terrorists. Neighbors are being told to spy on each other and report if any foreign visitors stay in apartments without registering at the police station. On that note, random checks of foreigners’ passports and visas have started around the country. In one situation, my friend’s apartment complex was on lock-down and no foreigner could come or go without showing their passport, visa, and form of temporary residence.
With everyone having to go home because of visa problems, airlines should be cashing in on expats’ long-haul flights, but with fuel prices rising, airlines are also feeling the pinch. Round-trip tickets from CA to Shanghai or Beijing between now and the Olympics are hovering at $1100, surprisingly reasonable given situation. But traveling to China for the Olympics, and prices start at $1600 r/t, with a stopover in Seoul each way.
With visas agonizingly difficult to get, airline prices rapidly increasing with this, that, and the other surcharge, Beijing hotel occupancy rates hovering around 30-50% for the Olympic games, and the government spreading fears of terrorism around Beijing, you have to wonder, is this really going to happen? The question becomes, why go to so much trouble cleaning up the city, designing spectacular stadiums, and investing in and building gorgeous new hotels, if you’re not going to give anyone visas, while making it such a hassle for them to come, such that hotels are half empty, and the games lack Olympic spirit? Will all the effort for the Olympics turn out to be a huge waste because no one comes?
The only positive news I’ve heard? My friend who works at the St. Regis-Shanghai said her hotel has seen a pick-up in bookings around the time of the Olympics.
June 17, 2008 at 7:29 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
“It had the makings of an online crisis that could spiral out of control. A man in Tianjin had put a deposit on a Toyota ™ Corolla, then started venting on the Internet when the car failed to show up after three months. Given the anti-Japan sentiment that rages in China’s cyberspace, the griping created a big risk for Toyota…”
Positive public relations seems even more essential in Chinese internet than elsewhere. As such, PR companies have started paying for positive reviews of clients and negative reviews of competitors. Will the Chinese wiseup and realize they’re being advertised to and their perceptions manipulated on the internet, as well as everywhere else?
read more | digg story
June 4, 2008 at 8:20 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Chinese scientists said the huge death toll from last month’s earthquake stems partly from a failure to heed clear warnings of a devastating earthquake in the area.
read more | digg story
June 3, 2008 at 7:32 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
This morning, in a half block I saw: a man hanging his tighty-whities from the light rail track in very public view; a split pants boy hanging way out of his pants; and a woman whose pants were so thin and see-through I could practically tell which brand of underwear she was wearing.
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