Shanghai's Pudong govt boosts holiday spending with consumption coupons

Pudong New Area, in the eastern part of Shanghai, launched its Spring Festival Carnival on Thursday, issuing an additional 20 million yuan ($2.7 million) of catering consumption coupons and announcing 160 activities in the area's major venues to celebrate the holiday.

The release of the new consumption coupons will start from 11 am Friday, available at on-demand service platform Meituan and video-sharing platform Douyin. Up to 300,000 coupons will be issued, which will be valid until Feb 12. Nearly 48 percent of the coupons provide nearly 50 percent discount at restaurants, seeing 400 yuan off for each 900 yuan spending and 240 yuan off for each 600 yuan spending.

The Pudong government announced in November that it will invest 100 million yuan to issue catering consumption coupons. As of Thursday, a total of 11 batches of such coupons have been issued, which can be used in more than 6,000 restaurants.

To date, over 95 million yuan of such coupons have been used, which have been translated into a total catering consumption of over 320 million yuan during the period.

Meanwhile, the second batch of tourism consumption coupons will be released in Pudong until Jan 31 and will be valid until Feb 12. These coupons can be used directly at major online travel platforms including Trip.com, Qunar, Meituan and Fliggy. The tourism coupons are also available to foreign travelers via the international portal of Trip.com.

Over 160 Spring Festival-themed activities will be held in 24 shopping centers, 40 bazaars, 10 cultural venues and 195 sports facilities during the holiday, which will stretch from Jan 28 to Feb 4.

An increasing number of foreign tourists are celebrating Chinese New Year in Pudong. In the first week of this year's Spring Festival travel rush, which started on Jan 14, about 65,000 foreigners entered China via the Pudong International Airport, a year-on-year spike of 70 percent. Among these foreign travelers, 33,000 have entered the country via China's visa exemption policy.

As the local government has calculated, the Oriental Pearl Tower, one of Shanghai's landmarks standing in Pudong, has received a total of 13,000 foreign tourists since the beginning of the year, up 47 percent year-on-year and accounting for 11.1 percent of the tourists that the tower received during the period.

In addition, the Top of Shanghai Observatory of the Shanghai Tower in the Lujiazui business district, Shanghai Disneyland, Florentia Village Shanghai and Bicester Village Shanghai have been rated as must-go spots for foreign travelers.

Progress has been made to better serve foreign travelers. The major shopping malls in Pudong, including Bicester Village Shanghai and Taikoo Li Qiantan have set up centralized refund points for immediate departure tax refunds. Lujiazui, where the iconic shopping center IFC Mall stands, has seen 87 percent of the shopping venues equipped with cross-border payment services.

In addition, Pudong introduced a total of 215 new stores last year, among which 47 are the brands' first brick-and-mortar presence in China.