TO BOOST occupancies for international branded hotels in Shanghai during the Golden Week in early October, the Shanghai Municipal Tourism Administration (SMTA) started this year an initiative to highlight the various promotions offered by city hotels.
“A lot of overseas visitors usually avoid Shanghai during the Golden Week,” explained SMTA vice chairman, Connie Cheng. “They have the (wrong) impression that because of the deluge of domestic tourists, hotels must be more expensive.”
The initiative grew occupancy from 40 per cent during last year’s Golden Week to 56 per cent this year.
According to Cheng, Shanghai received a bumper 8.5 million overseas and 240 million domestic visitors last year, when the city played host to the World Expo.
However, there has been a year-to-date decrease of eight per cent in foreign arrivals over the same period in 2010.
Cheng said international visitors spend an average of RMB2,000 (US$315) over 2.7 days in Shanghai, a figure the SMTA is looking to extend.
