BARS, restaurants and travel agencies in Shenzhen have been busy lately, gearing up to promote their businesses for the 2018 Russian FIFA World Cup, which opened in Moscow on Thursday night.
Most of the bars at the Coco Park shopping mall in Futian District have put up decorations, such as soccers and the national flags of participating countries, to attract soccer fans to watch the live games at their bars while consuming beer and snacks.
A bar posted a board showing information about the opening match between Russia and Saudi Arabia with cartoon figures of the teams’ players.
A German bar at Coco Park has been decorated with the national flags of the countries in the World Cup. According to a bar tender, the bar will have discounts on beer and wine during the World Cup, and they will be broadcasting the games live.
“We will hold a bet on which team will win tonight and a bottle of beer will be given as a reward to the customers who had the right guess,” a manager from the bar said Thursday before the game started.
Many bars in Shekou, Nanshan District also have special offers on beer, food and BBQ, for soccer fans during the tournament. Some bars will broadcast the games in English on large TV screens for the convenience of expat residents.
Some restaurants in Shenzhen, such as BBQ chain restaurants, will also have discounts on beverages and food to help soccer enthusiasts celebrate the once-every-four-years gala.
Apart from bars and restaurants, some online stores on platforms like Taobao.com and JD.com are also promoting their snacks, beer and soccer-related products with special discounts.
Although China’s national soccer team did not make it to the World Cup tournament, a lot of Chinese people have chosen to travel to Russia to watch the games in person.
According to a recent survey released by online tourism platform TripAdvisor, Chinese tourists have paid much closer attention to trips to Russia this year than in 2017, with an increase of 38 percent.
The World Cup’s official portal announced June 6 that 39,000 Chinese citizens had already submitted applications for a Fan ID, a special travel pass that allows foreigners to enter Russia without a visa within a prescribed period.
It is estimated that about 60,000 to 70,000, or even up to 100,000, Chinese will go to Russia to watch the games, said Bai Qiang, CEO of a sports and Internet company, in an interview with CFI.cn. However, accurate data can only be calculated after the tournament.
Some travel agencies in Shenzhen had been promoting special World Cup itineraries months before the games. A travel agency promoted a nine-day trip with a starting price of 6,050 yuan (US$946.75) that allowed tourists to watch both the semifinal and final World Cup games. However, the package tour price does not include the cost of the tickets to the games.
To cater to Chinese tourists’ eating habits, suppliers in China have exported 100,000 crayfish to Russia.
(He Mufu has contributed to the story.)