Some tourist attractions in China show their support to Huawei by offering discounts or free admission to Huawei smartphone owners. China condemns the arrest of Huawei's Chief Financial Officer, Meng Wanzhou, in Canada this month at the U.S. authorities' request due to alleged sanction violations in Iran.
The arrest of Meng started diplomatic friction between China and Canada. Huawei is once favored by the communist party. After the incident, rumors are circulating that the party snubbed the company during the celebration of the economic reforms.
The tourism industry of China showed their support to Meng. There are tourism offices in the country that gives patriotic promotions to users of Huawei and other local phone makers. Hannan's Shennong Mountain is the first tourism site to offer free admission to tourists who owned a Huawei mobile phone for two weeks. Shannon Mountain is a well-known geological site in central China. The promotion was then followed by the tourism office of Laoshan Baiyundong by offering a free pass for six days. The mountain in Hebei is famously known as the cradle of Taoism.
On December 19, the Jiangxi Wuyuan Tourism announced that they are cutting their ticket price in half for tourists visiting a dozen nature sites with a Chinese mobile phone. A spokesman of the Baiyundong tourism office told the Shanghai-based The Paper, that it is their way of expressing patriotism and the promotions came out of pure love for China, a small way to show support for the nation.
The promotions received positive and negative responses in social media. Others are happy about the discounts while others find it excessive. According to Coco Xiaoqu, a Weibo user, when the quality of domestic products truly matches the quality of foreign products, unprofitable behaviors won't be needed.
Meanwhile, Destination Canada, the national body that markets Canada as a tourism destination, will temporarily postpone their advertisements in China. The marketing body promotes Canada'swinter activities on Chinese social media. The arrest of Meng started anti-Canada campaigns in China. Some Chinese are protesting on social media while calling to boycott products of the Canada Goose Holdings Inc. The sour relationship between Canada and China also escalated after China's spy agency captured to Canadians. According to Cathie Bolstad, CEO of NWT tourism, they don't want to be fuelling the fire during a time when there are other stressful conversations going on.
