Two weeks ago we learned that foreign tourist visits to Beijing were down significantly in April, compared to 2007. And, late last week, the WSJ reported, via the AP, that there are plenty of hotel rooms – high-end and otherwise – available during the Olympics:
Zhang Huigang, the director of Beijing’s Tourism Bureau, told the AP that among five-star hotels, only 77% of rooms have been booked during Aug. 8-24. For four-star hotels, just 44% of rooms have been booked, and the occupancy rates are even lower for two- and three-star hotels, Zhang added.
Most major world cities, when faced with a drop-off in tourist visits in the aftermath of natural or political disasters, will go out of their way to issue welcoming statements, and will often coordinate with tourist boards and the hotel and F&B industries to offer promotional deals to incoming visitors (think of Hong Kong post-SARS; New York City post-9/11).
But this has not been the approach taken by China. Indeed, as the Olympics draw closer, the government seems determined to find new ways to telegraph to foreigners that they are unwelcome in Beijing – without actually saying that they are unwelcome in Beijing (note the late Spring passive aggressive denials about the tightened visa policy).
Which leads to BOCOG’s June 3 press release, entitled, “Behavior guide issued for foreigners during the Olympics.“ I have no idea whether or not other Olympic host cities have issued behavior guides (I looked; I could not find), but whether they have or not is really beside the point. If, as they often state, the Chinese authorities were trying to create a welcoming atmosphere for foreigners choosing to visit China during the Olympics, issuing a “behavior guide” was precisely the wrong way to do it (regardless of what’s in it).
Except for one problem: the press release and the Xinhua story reporting it are in English. The actual “behavior guide” is in Chinese. I suppose that this could be taken as an oversight by authorities anxious to get the message of the guide out to as many foreigners as possible (“don’t come”), as soon as possible. Or, just as plausibly, the real audience for this “behavior guide” is not the foreigners, but xenophobic Chinese officials automatically suspicious of large numbers of incoming foreigners and in need of reassurance that the problem is being handled properly. Why else would the government issue Chinese-language guidelines banning terrorists and hookers from the games?