Chinese Billionaire Li Jinyuan Takes 6,400 Staff on Holiday to France

Before you read: some questions to help you think about the topic and the words you might need.

What rewards does your company give to you for success? What rewards should they give?

Do bosses in your country take staff on vacations and spend a lot of money?

Chinese billionaire Li Jinyuan, President of the Tiens Group, has splashed out for over half of his company's 12,000 workforce to a four-day holiday to Paris and the South of France – at a total cost of around 37million dollars.

Jinyuan booked up 140 Paris hotels for 6,400 of his workforce, who were treated to tours of local sightseeing attractions including the Louvre and Eiffel Tower. He then booked 7,600 TGV seats for the trip south to the Cote d'Azur, meaning extra trains had to be booked and extra staff hired at Lyon.

Around 4,760 rooms were booked in four- and five-star hotels in Monaco and Cannes for the workforce, 5,400 of whom were from China and the remainder from other locations around the world. In total, Jinyuan booked 30,000 hotel rooms over four nights.

The culmination of the trip, which was organized to mark 20 years of partnership between Tiens and the French region, was along the Promenade des Anglais in Nice, where all the workers spelled out the words "Tiens' dream is Nice in the Cote d'Azur" in the world's longest human chain.

Now a huge multinational company, Tiens works in a number of sectors including tourism, e-commerce, health management and biotechnology. Jinyuan, who is on the Forbes Rich List and the 24th richest person in China, founded the company in 1995.

The expensive gesture by Jinyuan is an example of the growing economic power of China – and the enduring attraction of France, the world's most-visited country. Now 85 million foreigners visit France, spending 170 billion dollars and last year 1.7 million tourists came from China.

According to The Economist, Chinese travelers, now account for one in ten tourists round the world, forking out more than any other nation in tourism spending– $129 billion dollars in 2013.

Jinyuan's gift will be a huge bonus for the struggling French economy, which according to The National Institute of Economic and Social Research is set to be overtaken by the UK as the second-largest European economy after Germany.

Try to guess the meaning of the words in bold and match them with their closest meaning from the choices in the right. Some of the answers are very close and have similar meaning. The meaning of these words is how they are used in the reading. Some of these words have different meanings in the dictionary depending on how they are used.

 The answers are below the table.

A=4, B=1, C=8, D=2, E=7, F=3, G=6, H=5

Some example sentences to help you understand the meaning.

1.     He splashed out on an expensive new suit for the job interview.

2.     The culmination of 7 years of study was getting her Phd.

3.     The USA was founded in 1776.

4.     He bought lunch as a gesture for saying sorry for doing something bad.

5.     If you want to run a marathon, you need to endure running a very long time.

6.     In the court the man said he could not account for what he was doing that night.

7.     I wanted to impress her, so I forked out more than $100 on an expensive bottle of wine.

8.     India is set to overtake China as the fastest growing economy.

Some questions using the new words/phrases. Try to use the words/phrases in your answer.

1.     Does your company or school ever splash out on events for staff/students? What might they splash out on if they did?

2.     In Korea the culmination of stressful years of study is the Korean SAT. How much do you agree with this?

3.     What ideas or values was your company or school founded on?

4.     What kind gestures do you show to strangers or others?

5.     Why has France endured as the most popular tourist destination?

6.     If you were this rich, could you still account for spending this much money on luxury? Why or why not?

7.     The owner of this company forked out a lot of money, but do you think he can still see money spent well?

8.     India is set to overtake Japan as the world’s third biggest economy? What effect do you think this will have, if any?