A generous Chinese boss invites his employees to France

This rich Chinese billionaire has decided to bring 6,400 of his employees to France. This short trip lasting a few days starting in Paris and ending on the Côte d’Azur is offered to them to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the company, Tiens.

Li Jinyuan, who is the 24th richest person in China, spent EUR 13 million to book rooms in 140 hotels as well as 7,600 train seats. As an anecdote, the French national railways (SNCF) had to reserve 2 trains and employ additional staff in order to be able to meet the logistics and reception challenges at Paris Gare de Lyon.

In total, the boss of this services company reserved approximately 30,000 rooms, which proved to be a real nightmare for his team in charge of logistics and events. Tour operator Beijing UTour, which since December has been in charge of preparation, considered this event as the biggest tourist visit ever organised.

The tourist group was made up of 5,400 Chinese nationals and 1,000 people of foreign origin – which represents approximately half of Tiens’ employees. They spent two days on private visits of Paris, the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre.

For their last evening in Paris, an official dinner was organised in a fashionable restaurant in the city centre which was reserved for the entire evening and they then took the TGV the following morning to the Mediterranean coast.

A fleet of buses was engaged to collect them directly from their hotel rooms scattered across the four corners of Nice-la-belle, to then take them on a guided tour of the tourist sites. The group will meet for a souvenir photograph on the famous promenade des anglais.

It was this Wednesday that the foreign minister Laurent Fabius welcomed Li Jinyuan to France and he warmly congratulated him on having chosen France as a destination, hoping that it would serve as an example for other Chinese companies.

France is the preferred destination for tourists and welcomed 83 million visitors last year. Mainly because the share of Chinese tourism increased by 16% thanks to a new measure taken by the government to create a 48-hour express visa.

And visitors are making the most of it to bring back souvenirs. Of the three tourist groups, one group alone spent over EUR 116,000 on luxury products at the Galeries Lafayette in the city centre of Nice – EUR 75,000 on local specialities and various souvenirs and the rest on Chloé luxury bags costing EUR 1,000 each.