If you thought the Chamber of Commerce's biannual Inter-City Visits were junkets of questionable value, you might be interested to note that now they're organizing a trip to China! The most amazing part to me is that they charged participants $1,130 for a whirlwind 2-day trip to Michigan, but the cost for their 8-day China trip is only $2,099 (plus travel to JFK airport). Someone must be underwriting this trip. Who is it and why?
I can't even quite figure out the explicit purpose of the trip. The only clues I gleaned from their literature were that the trip is presented by the Chamber and "Citslinc International, Inc." Citslinc appears to be a company that specializes in these trips and in expanding the Inland Empire International Business Association.
In an effort to promote positive economic growth in the realm of International Trade, Citslinc has hosted several delegations of American businessmen and women, along with some of our local public officials, to visit China.
From a tourist perspective, the trip looks like a lot of fun, if a little shopping-heavy. But why is our Chamber of Commerce spending their limited time and resources organizing it?
Issues:
Comments
Tourist Trip
This is a group trip and other Chambers from around the country are also participating. It is a tour of China, not a business meeting trip. Non-members pay $100 more. Our Chamber is a "pass-through," not the organizer.Why is this suspect to you? Why do you care how the Chamber spends its "limited time and resources?"
Didn't the Governor
recently do a China trip too?
This trip represents a great
This trip represents a great opportunity for those who would ilke to visit China to do so in a very affordable fashion. There is no local underwriting for this trip. People pay their own way. I think it's a great idea for any membership organization to provide opportunities for its members and others to participate in optional group activities, especially when they are cost effective and interesting. Nobody makes me attend the trips the UNC GAA sets up, but I am sure a lot of people enjoy them--and I might too at some point in the future. I see those as adding value to my membership, and I see this China trip in the same fashion. But that's not all. If you read national media at all, then you know that China is quite serious about developing solar energy and in general about being agressive with US partnerships. Our business community here is inventing and developing technologies that could benefit greatly from national and international partnerships; Though this trip is not necessarily a business development trip, several of the folks that I know who are considering going are people who would like to develop larger markets for their goods and services and think this could be a place to start. We have a highly sophisticated business community here--it floats under a lot of people's radar because it doesn't occupy bricks and mortar on Franklin Street or at U Mall--but what it is doing is of national and international potential. One of the best things we can do for these local businesses is develop opportunities for them to grow. That's why the NC Department of Commerce spends a lot of time in China and other areas of the world. If a software developer in Orange County can find an international market for his product, that is a good thing. If we can develop relationships that will allow us to grow our solar cluster and other green industries, that's terrific. It's a global marketplace, and this area has people doing things of international value. there are a lot of ways the global economy can help the local economy. And the cultural experience alone will be great. It's a great deal and I hope a lot of folks will take advantage of it. Shopping is optional. :)
Trip to China
Thanks Anita, you make many great points. My wife and I took a group trip out of JFK in June '06 for 13 days ant it was $500 more. This is a really great price.What I didn't and still don't understand is why Ruby linked this to the Inter-city visits and tried to make it something negative. Her tweet, "@CarolinaChamber Is the China tour in lieu of a 2010 inter-city trip? How does it benefit Orange County?" clearly indicates that she didn't understand that this was a group package deal and had no organizational agenda. Of course, she could have asked the question before publishing her conjectures. To me, this is an example of trying to "srit the pot."
I assume
I assume that the typo was supposed to be "stir the pot," right?
LOL
STIR!
Fred's still typing with one hand
And I might have seen him with a beer at the church picnic this afternoon as well... :)