The Chinese company Tiens Group treated over half of its total 12,000 employees to a four-day vacation in France to celebrate its 20th anniversary. The company booked 140 hotels in Paris and the visiting employees occupied a street in Nice by forming a sentence with their bodies, which has broken the Guinness world record.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius met the company's chairman Li Jinyuan, and the French Newspaper Le Monde quoted Fabius as saying that the large Chinese tour group's visit to France was "extremely interesting, in terms of trade, economy and culture".
It's not surprising that the super Chinese tour group was welcomed by France. Tourism plays a key role in France's economy, especially considering its sluggish economic condition nowadays. In recent years, an increasing number of Chinese tourists have visited France. In 2013, Chinese people paid about 1.7 million visits to France.
The super tour group is expected to spend 13 million euros ($15 million) during the four-day trip.
For the company, the trip was not only a big bonus for employees, but also an astonishing public relations campaign in the international market.