Another corporate holiday for Tiens’ lucky employees

FOLLOWING what can only be imagined as the great success of the VIP French holiday that 6,400 employees of Tiens Group enjoyed last summer, the Chinese mega-company has decided to do it again, and has allegedly booked for 2,500 of its employees to go to Spain in 2016.

The rumoured cost of this holiday, due to include cultural activities and entertainment, is €7 million, organised by philanthropist and President of Tiens Corporation, Li Jinyuan. 

The mass communal holiday is due to commence on Wednesday May 4, when Tiens employees arrive in Madrid airport on 20 different scheduled flights. They will then travel to Barcelona on Sunday May 8 and remain in the Catalonian capital until May 10.

It is expected that the event will bring significant profit to the tourism sector in these two areas as it has been reported that the company has booked 1,650 hotel rooms and 70 transport buses. Four AVE trains between Madrid and Barcelona have been booked entirely for the sole purpose of transporting Tiens employees between the two locations.

Some of the trips that the Chinese congregation are expected to undertake will see them wandering the Royal Palace in Madrid, seeing Gaudi’s masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, and visiting Moralzarzal. It is also speculated that the Asian tourists will frequent Spanish department stores such as El Corte Ingles and the La Roca Village outlet in Barcelona.

Last year’s trip saw all of the Tiens’ Group holidaying employees line the Promenade des Anglais in Nice and spell out ‘Tiens’ dream is nice in the Cote d’Azur’. An aerial photograph was required to capture the whole scope of the spectacle, and the company actually broke a Guinness World Record for building the largest human sentence.

Tiens Group was founded by Li in 1995 and has since expanded to become an international conglomerate with businesses in ecommerce, tourism, health management and biotechnology. Their generous chairman was listed on Forbes’ 2011 List of Billionaires and has since attracted the attention of international media for his munificent holiday-bestowing ways.  Li is also known for his charitable donations, amongst which was $100 million (€87 million) to a private school in Tianjin, China, which enrols more than 3,400 students.