Back to Beijing

Back in the Dragonair lounge at Hong Kong International Airport en route for Beijing. I mention this only through having looked at my travel activity in the past 12 months. For one thing, this is flight number 80 since this time last year (ouch!). The other thing is that, despite trips to Beijing at least once or twice a month in the past few months, my trips to Shanghai have slowed to a trickle.

That's not to suggest that the sun is setting on Shanghai (although there are newspaper pundits who would have us believe that), but that business development focus is now elsewhere in China. My business involves working with clients to look forward and most of them, at least in the industries in which I'm working, see Shanghai as either fully served or as too competitive. In some industries, people are also telling me that they find it too expensive while fierce price competition keeps profitability low or non-existent.

Like Hong Kong, Shanghai is a resilient place and few people have made much money in the long term by betting against it. But it will be interesting to see where the new business develops.