Top Biz News

Freebies pump millions into economy

By Zhao Yanrong (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-02-25 13:49

Despite the fact that tourism authorities in the capital tried to give away two million free tickets to local attractions last year as part of a massive promotion, only 346,000 people made the most of the offer.

The freebies guaranteed entry to almost 50 tourism hot-spots in and around the city.

"Beijing was the first city to give away free tickets in China's tourism market," Wang Jian, director of the No 1 promoting department of the Beijing tourism administration, told METRO Wednesday.

A Fengtai resident surnamed Wang wins a car in a lottery for free tourism tickets. [China Daily]

"It was a very successful marketing strategy during the global financial crisis last year." According to the latest press release on the administration's website, 980,000 people applied for tickets.

Of those, 346,000 visitors actually used them.

The most popular destination was The Summer Palace, which waved in 53,394 people brandishing free passes.

The give-away generated 980 million yuan ($144 million) for Beijing's tourism economy, the website said.

"Some people booked our free tickets with an errant address or unreadable handwriting, so 8.2 percent of the free tickets could not be delivered to those who registered for them," an officer, surnamed Shi, who was part of the free tickets registration team, told METRO Wednesday. "We suggest people leave clear information for us during the following free-ticket events."

Shi explained that tourism authorities viewed the event as a success, even though only 346,000 of the two million free tickets were used. Some 300,000 were grabbed online during the Chinese New Year holiday.

"We were only expecting 200,000 people to use the free tickets, so it was much better than the benchmark we set in the beginning," Shi said. "We are expecting up to one million people to benefit from the free tickets this year."

Shi said the free tickets were responsible for an 11.8 percent growth in tourism income compared to the previous year. Of the free ticket users, some 25,000 people visited the China Central Television (CCTV) high-rise during the Spring Festival holiday. On one day, the influx broke the daily visitor record.

Zhao Yudong, general manager of the CCTV tower, said: "We accepted 4,193 free tickets but at least 10,000 others purchased theirs."

In light of last year's success, the tourism bureau is planning more promotional efforts for Beijing's tourism market.

"This year, we still plan to release up to two million free tickets in Beijing, mainly during the public holidays, and there will be more than 1,000 free rooms in hotels for more lucky visitors," Wang said.