Less party time

摘要

For a sense of how President Xi Jin-ping's anti-corruption campaign is doing, a recent report by Xinhua, the official news agency, is a good place to start: it said that 56 five-star hotels in China had asked to be downgraded last year in order to survive, as local governments have been prohibited from using luxury hotels. Chen Miaolin, chairman of New Century Tourism Group, told Xinhua that revenues at his group's (mostly five-star) hotels fell by 18% last year. In big cities business is down at many of the best private clubs and restaurants. A number of luxury brands have reported sharp falls in revenues. Remy Cointreau saw sales of its flagship cognac fall by more than 30% in the last three months of 2013 over the previous year, mostly owing to falling Chinese demand.