I have just finished reading the latest report from CNNIC titled 23rd Statistical Report on the Internet Development in China [pdf].
Here’s a quick summary of the salient points as released by CNNIC.
Internet Penetration Rate in China Surpassed the Global Average Level for the First Time
According to the report, by the end of 2008, the Internet penetration rate of 22.6% in China had surpassed the global average level of 21.9% for the first time. Meanwhile, the amount of Internet users in China had reached 298 million, with 279 million broadband users. …

Clinique, Sony Star in Web Sitcom
Products Are Woven Into Plot of Chinese Show, and Viewers Get Say in the Story
Reaching China’s young people, who tend to avoid the country’s staid TV programming, is a challenge for many marketers. For Estée Lauder and Sony, the answer was to help produce a digital sitcom.
The 40-episode series, called “Sufei’s Diary,” weaves product placements for Estée Lauder’s Clinique brand cosmetics and other products into plotlines about a college student in Shanghai named Sufei. The online series has been …

(February 2009)
Chapter I General Provisions

Article 1 The Regulation is formulated for the purpose of strengthening administration of travel agencies, ensuring the legitimate interests of tourists and travel agencies, maintaining the tourist market order and boosting the healthy development of tourism.
Article2 The Regulation shall apply to the establishment and operation activities of the travel agencies in the People’s Republic of China.
Travel agencies herein refers to the business entities engaging in such activities as soliciting, organizing and receiving tourists, providing services related to tourism and conducting domestic travel business, inbound travel …

Two-Third of Global Online Popular visits These Sites Each Month.
“Time Spent” on These Sites Growing Three Times Faster than Overall Internet Rate, Now Accounting for Almost 10 Percent of all Internet Time.
The Biggest Increase in Visitors to These Sites were 35-49 Year Olds.
Now visited by over two-thirds (67 percent) of the global* online population, “Member Communities,” which includes both social networks and blogs, has become the fourth most popular category online – ahead of personal email. It is growing twice as fast as any of the other four largest sectors …

By 2015, China is expected to have more than 4 million wealthy households, making it the world’s fourth-largest country in terms of its number of wealthy households after the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom, says a new report by global management consultants McKinsey & Company. The number of wealthy households–defined as urban households with annual income in excess of 250,000 renminbi–reached 1.6 million in 2008. The research, which included face-to-face interviews with 1,750 wealthy households from 16 cities in China, highlights the rapidly growing and fast-changing nature of …

GUANGZHOU, CHINA Mayland Seaside Hotel, a 5-star hotel project to be situated along the Zhujiang River, will feature an architecture style focused on sensibility to social responsiveness, energy use, urbanism and ecological awareness. The hotel is currently in the deisgn phase and is due to be completed in 2012-2013, according to Narendra Patel, Patel Architecture, Rancho Mirage, California.
The design provides for wind turbines on the upper portion of the tower and massive array of photovoltaic panels covering the entire south façade. In the basement is a provision to incorporate a fuel cell power …

Travelzen today announced the launch of a ‘Truly Hassle-free’ Travelzen.com website that will set new benchmarks in business and leisure travel in China. Guaranteeing both prices and availability, the new site will also eliminate the annoying last-minute increases in quoted prices that have long handicapped the development of China’s online travel industry.
The impressive result of 2 years’ intensive R&D, the new website will see Travelzen become the first travel provider in China to offer a genuinely world-class end-to-end online travel experience. Leveraging its ‘Truly Hassle-free’ transaction model, Travelzen.com will free travelers from the …