Putting the art into the heart(2)

Pearson, which publishes mainly education books in China, already has 6,000 employees here. It sells tens of millions of books in China each year. Other international publishers actively expanding into China include Macmillan Publishers, Bertelsmann AG, and HarperCollins Publishers.

Tourism is also experiencing a growth, because urbanization increases people's curiosity of the outside world, says Dun Jidong, senior sales manager at the Chinese tourism operator Ctrip.com International Ltd.

"The lifestyle in rural areas is quite simple, but in cities people increasingly look for a more sophisticated lifestyle with more enjoyment. They want to experience the foreign lifestyle and try foreign food."

China's expenditure on travel abroad totaled $102 billion last year, the highest globally, United Nations World Tourism Organization statistics say.

Dun says that in the early days of international travel, packaged tours where five or eight countries are visited together were generally popular with the Chinese, because they saw such packages as economical in cost and time.

"As China urbanizes, people's demand for tourism becomes more sophisticated. More and more look for in-depth tours and increasingly they'd like to travel by themselves as opposed to with tour groups," Dun says.

Taking the Hong Kong market as an example, Dun says group tours that his company hosts only represent 10 percent of overall traveling.

"They are not there just to see Hong Kong, they want to spend their day properly with a relaxed mindset."

Dun says that on average many would choose to travel abroad twice a year, and also travel three to four times within China.

"Living in urban cities can be tiring sometimes, because work tends to be busy and lifestyle is hectic, so relaxation in the form of tourism has become popular," Dun says.

China's urban art scene has also grown over the years, to host many prestigious international art shows, fairs, galleries and auction houses.

"More and more Chinese are developing a knowledge and an interest in the arts," says Hadrien De Montferrand, who opened an independent contemporary art gallery in Beijing using the experience he gained from working in European auction houses for more than seven years.

He says that he opened the Hadrien de Montferrand Gallery because he saw an opportunity to build a bridge between China and Europe's art markets.

He says over the years the gallery's customer base has grown, particularly for young and enthusiastic Chinese art collectors.

Meanwhile, urban China is witnessing an increasing number of foreign theme entertainment venues and attractions, such as theme parks, zoos and aquariums.

Dennis Speigel, president of International Theme Park Services Inc, a US consultancy, says that he believes China will become the most theme-park-populated country over the next 25 years because of its dense population spread, especially in urban cities.

"Urbanization fosters theme park development, typically providing green-field sites on the fringes of cities which, through time and growth of the cities, makes the theme parks more geographically centralized," Speigel says.

Ghassan Ayoubi, executive director at the Jordan-headquartered digital content production company Rubicon Group Holding, says that international theme entertainment venues' expertise in story telling gives them an advantage in the Chinese market.

Ayoubi says that once the story ideas are put in place, international investors should work on integrating their concepts and technology with the local legal framework and suppliers in China to make sure the desired venue can be realized.

The most talked about foreign theme park is the Disney one set to open in Shanghai in 2015 and, on a smaller scale, attractions such as Shanghai's Changfeng Ocean World and Madame Tussauds in Shanghai and Hong Kong operated by the UK's Merlin Entertainment Group.

"China is a very exciting and dynamic market. The feedback we have had, both from our existing attractions and from the research we have done across China, shows that Chinese tourists love our brands, and really appreciate the quality of what is on offer," says Glenn Earlam, Merlin Entertainment's managing director of midway attractions.

"The combination of urbanization and the phenomenal and consistent economic growth in China has resulted in a growing middle class looking for new quality experiences and ways in which to enjoy their growing wealth," Earlam says.

He says Merlin also plans to open a new Madame Tussauds in Wuhan this October, and a cluster of three attractions in Chongqing, which are a Madame Tussauds, a Sea Life aquarium and a Legoland Discovery Centre, from 2015 onwards.

As urbanization brings the Chinese wealth and taste, art and entertainment activities are no longer considered a luxury, but an integral part of people's daily lives, as is reflected by Chinese cities' architecture, says Simon Poole, senior associate director of British architecture firm Benoy.

Poole says one example of a Benoy project is Rio Carnival in Qingdao, where his team has integrated a series of retail based streets and squares with performance spaces, public squares, a theme park, two hotels and a convention center.

"This is not just a re-branding exercise but a new approach to the fundamental design of retail-led mixed use developments," Poole says.

For example, shopping malls in China are no longer just used for shopping, but for urban people to "meet friends, watch films, exercise, stroll around and dine out", he says, adding such a change creates opportunities for Western architects.

"As the line between retail and leisure blurs, Benoy's award-winning innovative approach stands us in good stead for these exciting times ahead," Poole says.