Local Holiday 🤿💺 and I'm not talking about a forced "staycation" which many of us have experienced in the last 6 months...

I'm talking about one of the outcomes of Covid19 bringing more people to take holidays in their own country (of residence). While many used to dedicate part of the summer days to travel abroad, travel restrictions have brought numerous families to explore local travel. Unlike the EU who has its borders open between the member countries allowing residents to travel almost freely within the EU, or the US who is still struggling with the pandemic, China has isolated itself from the rest of the world to keep its citizens and residents Covid19-free - resulting in a much needed boost to the local tourism industry – probably the industry suffering the most from the pandemic.

My family is not an exception, taking a 3-night mini holiday to the water town of Wuzhen 乌镇. Just a 2-hour drive from Shanghai will bring you to one of Zhejiang Province’ most tourist water towns. In fact, many of the cities and towns in Zhejiang, Shanghai and Jiangsu province have plenty of lakes, rivers and streams running through them being close to the Yangtze river (长江) delta the Hangzhou bay area. Touristic water towns have maintained and preserved the houses as they used to be in ancient China creating a beautiful scenery of small rivers, bridges and classic Chinese architecture – presumably the same as it used to look hundreds of years ago. Numerous pictures could be found online.

On the commercial side, about 70 USD will get you a night in a modern looking hotel in the center of town. The neighboring streets are filled with restaurants and shops – 99.9% catering to the Chinese taste. The cashless trend has not skipped Wuzhen and every shop or hotel accepts Wechat and Alipay either directly or through 3rd party partners. Some shops probably still accept the local Unionpay cards, but these seem to be abandoned for the more cost effective static QR stickers which allow you not only to pay but also view a menu and order in a restaurant, for example.

Scan the QR to order directly to your table, pay online using Wechat, Alipay or Unionpay

Luckin Coffee, a Starbucks-inspired coffee chain, that was once valuated at $12B and since then value dropped to $0.7B took self-service to another level. The chain has more than 3500 branches in China and when you enter the store you may see servers/cashier and a cashier looking area, however the only way to place an order and pay is through scanning a QR code or downloading the Luckin coffee app. You can't order from a person or pay with a card or, god forbid, cash. The shops merely serve as a showcase for the brand with humans temporarily employed to mix the drinks, pack them, and place then on a counter with the order number for the self pickup. Its only a question of time until these functions would be automated too 🤖.

When it comes to international travelers, one must wonder how these are expected to pay since most vendors will not accept foreign credit cards and many places will be surprised of the sight of cash (We didn’t take any cash with us on this trip). Therefore, while China has successfully made its huge leap forward making it no doubt the cashless society global leader, the same move has isolated China in terms of interoperability, closing its merchant eco-system to foreign visitors. Some efforts made by Wechat and Alipay in 2019 to allow linking a foreign bank card to their platform seems like a step in the right direction although this seems to have many limitations and restrictions (amount limit, complicated registration, etc).

Vending machines in Wuzhen, accepting only Wechat and Alipay, no cash, no cards

A couple of other impressions from the hotel:

• I didn’t spot anyone with masks during our stay. There was a lot of registration bureaucracy, from the famous “Health Code”, to registering with the your phone carrier (the one that provides you with internet services while tracking your location) – and photocopies of your last entrance to China. One supermarket took our temperature but that’s it. Life in the safe zone.
• The pool itself is defined as a “playing pool” – it is very minimal in size and has no shading from the scorching sun - in 36°c (almost 97°F) it’s a much needed feature. We did see a lot of kids (mainly) in the pool meaning that locals are far more open these days to such activities. From checking other offering in the area we learnt that very few offer pools (swimming or recreational). While a pool might have been something nice to put on brochures 10 years ago, it seems that there is more demand among locals and hotels should consider investing more in their pools and surrounding area.

• Food – The hotel breakfast was presented as “Western Style”. It seems like having toast, bacon, egg, salad and OJ have decrypted the secrets of western cuisine. All in all, it was a nice fusion having toast and Baozi on the same plate. Out of the hotel, only Chinese food is to be found, with one apparent KFC in town and the occasional “more is more” Pizza.

It might take time until we could all travel abroad freely, in the meantime, help your local economies, go local. Who knows, you might stay local…

#travel #travelchina #paymentsinchina #travellocal #localtravel #chinatravel #travelduringcovid19 #cashless