Subject of Money

You should be aware of the money exchange situation in China before you go.  The exchange rate lately is  $1.00 = 6.21 Yuan in China.  There is a high service charge by the banks outside       of China if you want to exchange money before arriving in China.   Credit cards are not widely used except for hotels, factory and main department stores.  Many restaurants do not take credit cards either.  There are ATMs available in most larger cities but not in the rural areas.  Hotels in the cities will usually exchange dollars for yuan but not in the rural areas. The hotel exchange is a service to the guests and there is a very minor charge.  Banks also exchange dollars for yuan in most larger cities but again not in the rural areas.  Some banks also do not deal in exchange at all.   Cash is King as they say.  You will see most Chinese dealing in cash and often have large amounts of money with them when they go shopping.  I myself have my credit cards and debit cards along with taking a fair amount of cash.  If you have a Stock Broker, check with them if they offer a Debit card for your account.  Mine does and there are no charges for its use domestically or internationally.  Hotels have safes in the room in which you set the combination and can keep your valuables during the day when you are out sightseeing.  While many things you will find are inexpensive you will also find many things on a par with the U.S. or HIGHER.   My Chinese friend from Chengdu recently spent a year in the U.S.  When she went home she could not believe how prices had increased so much since she had been gone.  For more information on MONEY, feel free to email me with your questions.  You will not be pressured to book a  tour with us nor will you be put on an email list for spam.   My name is Dave and can be reached at    interlak@eskimo.com

 China as you will find is a country of wide contrasts.

Click on the photos for full screen viewing

Best Times to Tour China

A question I am often asked is what is the best time to travel in China.   Weather of course is important for most people.  Spring months of late March and April are good times to tour for most of the country although expect more rain especially in southern China.  May can be good but can also be warm and humid in the south.   Summer months of June, July and August are generally warm and a bit humid however there are good places to tour in the mountains such as Sichuan and other provinces.  Otherwise expect temperatures above 85 with high humidity in most areas.   Fall months over all are the best months.  September and October are the most comfortable but also most popular.   The Silk Road in the far northwest is best in April and then again in mid August through early October.  Summers can be extremely hot and winters very cold.   Perhaps the times to avoid travel in China is during National  holidays of May 1st and Oct. 1st when people have a whole week off.  Transportation is quite full and hotels and restaurant prices are at their highest unless you book much in advance.  Spring Festival which is the Chinese New Year changes each year and can be from late January to late February period.  People have a full week off here too and it is the custom to return to your parents home for that period.  Transportation can be very difficult unless booked months in advance through a tour operator or travel agent.  I have avoided that time myself as everything is very crowded.  For my clients I try to plan their tours to avoid these periods during the year for their comfort and cost.  Winter is a good time to tour IF you do not mind the cold weather.  Snow is rare and sights are all but empty of tourists.   For more information on times to travel in China please feel free to contact me at    interlak@eskimo.com    My name is Dave and you will not have any sales pitch or follow up with spam mail. 

Interview of a Digital Marketing Agency in China (French)

I had the pleasure of interviewing Olivier Verot last week. Olivier Verot is the founder of Gentlemen Marketing Agency based in Shanghai, specialized in Digital marketing, SEO, Social Media, Buzz in China. We discuss marketing strategy on Chinese social networks for foreign brands.


 

more information

China’s smartphone market drops 4%

Analysts have warned us for some time that China's smartphone market is down, and today we have the most convincing evidence that the dynamics of the buyer move in the country.

A new IDC report says smartphone shipments in the last quarter fell for the first time in nine years. The research firm tracking 98.8 million smartphones shipped in Q1 2015 - which is down 4 percent year on year and by 8 percent on the previous quarter. IDC suggested that the excess inventory from the previous quarter was partly to blame. (This is something we heard in India earlier this year.) "China is often seen as an emerging market, but the reality is that the vast majority of phones sold in China are now smartphones, similar to other mature markets like the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Japan, "said Kitty Fok IDC in a statement. As a result, smartphone makers will have a more difficult challenge of finding new growth, as they will need to convince the owners of existing smartphones to spend money to upgrade their existing phone.

Apple takes top spot

This is much more difficult than converting a buyer for the first time. Nevertheless, the Chinese smartphone market is enormous. The largest in the world. Not surprisingly, given its latest blockbuster quarter in China, Apple took the top spot in the country, according to IDC. The Apple company has set forward with 14.7 percent of the total shipments in China, just ahead Xiaomi (13.7 percent) and Huawei (11.4 percent). Samsung (9.7 percent) and Lenovo / Motorola (8.3 percent) completed the top five. However, IDC warned that "the volatility of the brand consumer preference", rankings will be subject to rapid change and evolution

China, the world’s largest smartphone market, saw shipment volumes fall 4.3 per cent in Q1 to 98.8 million units, the first time in six years that the market has declined year-on-year.

sources : 

http://www.mobileworldlive.com/chinas-smartphone-market-drops-4-apple-takes-top-spot

http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/10/apple-top-but-chinese-smartphone-market-shrinks/#.qenndb:rqa7

http://www.legitreviews.com/chinas-smartphone-market-contracts-for-first-time-in-years_163322

travel massive and Chinese tourist Agency

With a blend of Chinese and Foreigners, we understand what foreign companies want and need as well as how Chinese tourist make purchase. 


Our target? Helping foreign tourism companies, tourism agencies and other actors in the tourism industry to be successful in the China market via online services 
Why? 
China represents 45% of the netizen global population with about 630 million netizen and a yearly 100 million Outbound tourists. 

see more at https://travelmassive.com/chinese-tourist-agency

To success in China respect the Chinese Standards

4. Respect Chinese standards

Websites are not done the same way in western countries and in China. It means a western website can’t be directly translated into Chinese. You have to adapt your Chinese website. This is the case for cultural reason but also for ranking reasons. For example you have to have the maximum information on a single page, precise information, with usually the text written in small size, enabling you to put more information on the page.

 from : http://www.qpsoftware.fr/en_US/blog/54/10-tips-to-do-an-e-business-website-in-China.php

5. Payment

Chinese people don’t use Paypal, but they use Tenpay or Alipay. Alipay支付宝is the payment platform created by Alibaba, a big web company, and existed since 2004. Taobao, the biggest e-business C2C platform of China uses Alipay as well. Tenpay is also a payment platform, created by Tencent, the biggest Chinese web company. It allows you to make B2B, B2C and C2C payments. You can recharge you Tenpay account also offline, the company sending itself an employee to collect the money.

6. Promotion

You have to know that Chinese people are used to bargain for everything in their everyday life. It means that the consumers should also have the feeling to have good deals on the web. For this reason, when you have an e-business website, you need then to do often good promotions and good deals. For example Taobao took profit these last years of the “single say”, a commercial festival happening on 11th of November (11/11), making a lot of special offers. Finally the operation was very successful, Taobao earning something like 19 billion Yuan this day.

Chinese Automotive article

I'd like to share some news from China automotive industry, which you might be interested in.

1. FAW and Dongfeng appoints new chairmen

Today Dongfeng Auto announced that it's chairman Mr.Ping Xu will leave for FAW's chairman vacancy. Dongfeng's chairman position is now taken over by Zhu Yanfeng, former deputy secretary of the CPC (Communist Party of China) Jilin Provincial Committee. 
FAW and Dongfeng are among the Big-Four state giant auto manufacturers in China, the others are SAIC and Changan. source

2. Zotye to establish a new plant in Xiangyang, Hubei province SEO

On April 28th, Zotye Auto signed an agreement with Xiangyang municipal goverment to construct a new plant in Xiangyang. This new plant will have a capacity of 200,000 new-energy vehicles/year, totally investment will be 3.3 billion RMB(that's 532 million USD). The first phase project will start constructing since July 2015. 
Zotye is the first prviate company who received a license for manufacturing new energy vehicles.
see also that iworkinchina.wordpress.com/2015/05/06/google-vs-china-vs-seo/

3. Number of registered vehicles by 2014, sorted by provinces.

 

Province	Registered private passenger cars (millions)
Beijing	3.165
Tianjin	1.818
Hebei	5.425
Shanxi	2.55
Inner Mongolia	1.852
Liaoling	4.33
Jilin	1.4647
Shanghai	1.8343
Jiangsu	6.656
Anhui	2.051
Fujian	2.0997
Jiangxi	1.393
Shandong	7.632
Hunan	2.341
Guangdong	10.1306
Guangxi	2.6964
Chongqing	1.0801
Gansu	0.7326
Qinghai	0.2908
Ningxia	0.3992
Xinjiang	2.0862

How spain will invest to attract Chinese tourists

The sun and beaches have made the country of Cervantes Preferred destination of the French, British and Germans, and the third worldwide. But Spain must now adapt to tourists from emerging countries, who are calling for a revolution.
Chinese Tourists agency, explain that Chinese travelelr are becoming more independant and use Internet to get the information that they need, tour operator, shopping tips, or the best restaurant to visit

Spanish tourism 

Now, the Spanish tourism sector seeks to attract travelers from Asia and Latin America. And the country must adapt its offer to the needs of the twenty-first century travelers, says El País newspaper. Without neglecting those seeking sun and beaches Iberian, Spain must look beyond its shores and respond to what the newspaper called "the customer travel revolution."

the Chinese customer revolution

Chinese customers are not interested in the beach, because culturally, they prefer to avoid the sun. However, in China, there is a growing interest in wine, "the newspaper, which considers wine tourism will be one of the revolutions coming of the Spanish tourism industry. Also, you have to adapt to consumer and luxury tourism, widespread among Asian travelers, the Middle East and South America. The revolution of Big Data

Based on interview by El País at the World Summit Tourism, held in Madrid on April 15 and 16, Ana Botín, president of Santander Bank, thinks that "the response to the needs of new tourists could go through big data. New technologies should be at the heart of the sector, which, as the bank, can benefit from the huge amount of data that the tourist leaves on their tastes, schedules and habits. "

How Spain can it increase revenues

"How Spain can it increase revenues?" Asks El País. According to the newspaper, globetrotters worldwide relate 9% of world GDP, a figure that may rise 3.7% thanks to China's passenger and Latin America.

With 65 million tourists in 2014 and an estimated 90 million in 2030, according to industry sources cited by El Pais, "Spain must renew its infrastructure to facilitate the arrival of tourists and preserve the quality of life of its citizens ". According to a report, the network of Spanish airports is one of the most complete in the world, but must be brought into line with the criteria of sustainable development, as well as the hospitality industry, because in the future, the Basically, those areas will experience quality offered to tourists, the newspaper added.

In 2015, 120 million Chinese will travel all around the world

In 2015, 120 million Chinese tourists will be traveling around the world. If they are welcome in Europe is far from the case in Asia where they blame their arrogance With their deep pockets, Chinese travelers are desired, particularly on the Old continent where spending help to maintain the tourism sector. But they are not welcome everywhere. So much so that Beijing launched a major operation to educate.

Chinese tourists are changing 

Previously, Chinese tourists traveling in groups exclusively. It was housed in hotels owned by Chinese and fed in Chinese restaurants. It was very difficult for professionals to attract this tourism

For ten years, there has been a real revolution with two key elements: the emergence of a middle / upper class with the financial ability and high performance development of the Chinese Internet. Today, it is almost unique instrument of Chinese tourist for information and reservations.

The brand purchaser traveller 

To simplify, it is possible to well define the typical profile of the new Chinese tourist. He is young, between 25 and 35 years. He is passionate about shopping, especially brands and also by European culture. Caroline Paul is Executive Director of Travel Talents in Paris. She advises tourism professionals who want to attract the Chinese: "The Chinese tourist is primarily connected hyper It constantly surfs the internet and it is all the time on his mobile phone to inform, communicate, keep in touch with her. friends in China. It is the king of the ego-branding. He identifies himself constantly on social networks. It will make it to Paris, Brussels or London to show with pride that trip. The Chinese to take pictures throughout their stay and they post their pictures on the net. " And as social networks are very well attended in China, each photo posted is an ad for the place or the shop where it was taken. see also these article http://touristechinois.com/les-9-axes-de-developpement-du-tourisme-chinois/

Specific preparation for these tourist

When the Chinese tourists travel, so it's hyper connected, but how can we attract? We must get him there. We forget Google, Twitter and Facebook, which are normally blocked in China. Ideally, it should be listed on Baidu, the search engine used by 70% of Chinese which requires a job and a specific investment.

In addition, adequate preparation is essential as explained a professional of tourism: "You have to listen, understand the market, understand the Chinese tourists, willing to adapt to this new culture it is back in understanding. a country that is growing very fast economically and culturally as well as the digital plan. We must adapt ourselves up to be present in terms of communication in preparing the trip in this ecosystem are completely different from ours. "

The game is worth the candle. More than 100 million Chinese traveling abroad each year while 200,000 of them visited Belgium in 2014. The question is how many hours (or days?), They had there.
Meet all the profesional of tourism in China on this group.

Job offer, we rent foreigner in China

Rent a foreigner in China !

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