A Chinese billionaire paid for
a massive four-day corporate trip to France, covering the costs for over half
of his 12,000 employees, to celebrate the firm’s 20-year anniversary. The
gesture cost the tycoon about US$15 million.
The
head of Tiens Group Company, Li Jinyuan reserved 140 hotels in Paris alone,
Reuters quoted a French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman as saying. The group
visited the capital and Cote D’Azur in the south of France.
International media report:
Another
4,760 rooms were booked in 79 four- and five-star hotels in Cannes and Monaco.
At least 146 buses were also rented for transportation.
This
was the biggest vacation booking ever in France.
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Employees
of Chinese company "Tiens" attend a parade on May 8, 2015 in Nice
organized by "Tiens" CEO Li Jinyuan as part of the two-days
celebration weekend for the 20th anniversary of his company in which he invited
6,400 of his employees. (AFP Photo / Valery Hache)
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The
generosity took social media by storm. The 57-year-old Li is included on the
Forbes 2011 list of world billionaires, but this trip is also going to land him
in the book of Guinness World Records as well.
In
Cote D’Azur, the entire 6,400-strong crowd gathered on Nice’s famous Promenade
des Anglais dressed in blue and white, their company’s corporate colors, and
formed a line to spell out “Tiens’ dream is Nice in the Cote d’Azur.”
The
human chain broke the Guinness World Record for the longest phrase visible from
the sky.
As
for the visit to Paris, it included a private viewing of the Louvre and the
Moulin Rouge cabaret show.
Li
founded the Tiens Group Company in 1995, and since then it has grown into a
huge international conglomerate working in various fields such as
biotechnology, health management, e-commerce, and hotel and tourism.
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Chinese
businessman and CEO of the group "Tiens" Li Jinyuan (C) parades on
May 8, 2015 in Nice as part of the two-days celebration weekend for the 20th
anniversary of his company in which he invited 6,400 of his employees. (AFP
Photo / Valery Hache)
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France
welcomed the idea of the colossal corporate getaway with open arms, as tourism
accounts for 7 percent of the nation’s GDP – around US$177 billion. “We have
mobilized public services as well as tourism professionals, hotels,
restaurants, shops and designer brands,” Christian Mantel, head of Atout
France, a tourism development agency, told AFP. “So far everything has gone
smoothly, the feedback has been extremely positive.”
The
holiday crowd reportedly spent some US$13 million shopping in French stores,
partly on luxury goods, according to Euronews. The positive publicity from the
lavish mass vacation may also help improve the image of Chinese tourists,
notorious for their misbehaviour abroad.
Recently, the Chinese
government has stepped up measures to increase people’s awareness of good
manners while on holiday, and even created a black list for travellers accused
of extreme rowdiness.
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