This Christmas season has been one of chill, both for businesses and shoppers in China, compared with last year. Not many high-end restaurants, unlike in the past, have offered expensive Christmas and New Year Eve dinners or customized packages. Even middle-grade and ordinary restaurants have refrained from making special arrangements for the Western festive season.
Still, marketing managers have used available means to draw shoppers, by decorating shop windows and entrances with plastic Christmas trees and chic Santa Clauses. Quite a few hotels and restaurants, which normally cater to the rich, are offering Christmas and New Year eve dinners and/or entertainment programs at affordable prices. For example, Kinsley Sheraton Hotel in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, charged 998 yuan ($160) per person, against almost 2,000 yuan last year, for a traditional ballet performance on Christmas Eve. And a mid-level hotel in Dalian, Liaoning province, offered guests expensive food packages at comparatively moderate prices.
The response of not only businesses but also consumers to Christmas this year has been lukewarm, as indicated by media interviews with people nationwide. This has made many wonder whether Western festivals are losing their charm in China.
Raymond Zhou
Op Rana
Berlin Fang
Zhu Yuan
Huang Xiangyang
Chen Weihua