Ripped off

Were Osborne and Victor ripped off in London? A Chinese website seems to think so. China Travel Industry News is the ChinaContact Blog that claims to collect and expertly analyse all the news about China’s tourism sector. Those who read and listen to the local media will recall that at last week’s press conference the Chief Minister and the Minister of Finance reported on their activities during the previous week in London. They had gone there ostensibly to negotiate an increase in the Anguilla government’s borrowing powers. Britain holds a tight leash on the power of overseas territories’ governments to engage in borrowing that might come back to be a burden on the British Treasury Department.

While in London, the government delegation engaged in a number of unrelated, spur-of-the-moment activities. One of these adventures was to sign a contract with the Chinese Business Network. This is a London-based translation service. According to the Anguilla Minister of Finance, for a “very minimum fee of ₤5,500 Anguilla will be registered on their network. They will translate Anguilla’s promotion on their website and maintain it over a period . . .”. So Victor is reported as telling the Anguilla press.

What the China Travel Industry News Blog hints is that Anguilla was overcharged. A competitive pricing for the service contracted would have been more in the region of ₤1,500. We did not need the Blog to tell us that our government does not have a clue about how to market us. We did not need to have it rubbed in our face that we often act in a rash way without investigating the market properly. But, that is exactly what they imply about our leaders’ wild initiative:

For comparison, we charge our clients for building a Chinese version site and hosting it in China for a year around £500 + £200 for the hosting and registration of own domain name. Translation is an extra few hundred but the whole thing does not go over £1,500.

The point I am illustrating is that so many countries that are new destinations for the Chinese have no clue about how to market themselves and they often act in a rash way without investigating the market properly and seeing if their expectations are realistic.

What we at ChinaContact are hoping to do is raise the level of education and awareness about the Chinese market in an honest and transparent way. It is easy to lose control of your marketing if you don’t understand the market for yourself.

If only our boys had sought and taken a little advice first while they were in London!

Why do we have to be so cowboy about everything?