Corporate and delegation visits

1. Routes teams most often ask for

Most delegations arrive with one of a few themes, and the same names come up. The routes below are for orientation: every visit is granted by the company's own visitor or reception programme, we hold no affiliation with any company named, and access is theirs to give or refuse.

Combinations reflect what visiting teams most often request, not an endorsement by the companies named.

2. What a delegation visit is

A team travels to see how something is actually done here, manufacturing, electric vehicles, e-commerce and logistics, AI and robotics, hospital operations, an industry association, a university department. They want to walk the floor, ask questions of the people doing the work, and go home with something more useful than a brochure.

Nothing about this is medical, including visits to hospitals. Seeing how a hospital runs its outpatient flow is an operational question, not a clinical one, and no patient information is involved at any point.

It also happens to be the part of our work that fits our registration most comfortably: conference and exhibition services, translation, and business coordination. There is no boundary to tiptoe around here, which is a pleasant change.

3. The thing nobody else will tell you: access is not for sale

A host organisation decides whether to receive a visit, who it will receive, what it will show and what it will not. An intermediary cannot sell you access to a company that has not agreed to receive you, and any proposal that implies otherwise is either misinformed or dishonest.

What actually determines whether a visit happens:

• Who is coming. A named delegation with roles and seniority gets a different answer from “a group of international visitors”.
• Why. Hosts receive visits for a reason, a potential relationship, an existing supplier link, an academic connection, reciprocity. “Interest” alone is a weak case.
• When. Lead times are longer than most visitors expect, and national holidays close things for a week at a time.
• What you are asking to see. Production areas, R&D and anything commercially sensitive are routinely off-limits. Better to find that out at the planning stage than at the gate.

Our job includes telling you, before you book flights, what a host is realistically likely to open up. An honest no in week one is worth more than a polite maybe in week six.

4. How a programme comes together

1. Scope. Who is travelling, what they need to come away with, how many days, which cities. Cities matter: a three-city programme costs more in travel time than it returns in content.
2. Approach. Written enquiries to candidate hosts, in Chinese, with a clear statement of who you are and what you are asking for. This stage takes as long as it takes.
3. Confirmation. Hosts confirm a date, a duration, a contact and what will be shown. Nothing goes in the programme until it is confirmed by the host.
4. Briefing. Background on each host, who you will meet, the questions worth asking, and what not to ask. Prepared in advance, in your language.
5. On the ground. Interpretation throughout, a running schedule, and someone whose job is the logistics so that your team can pay attention to the visit.
6. Afterwards. Translation of anything you were given, and of any follow-up correspondence.

5. Entry

Business visitors normally travel on an M visa, or on a visa-free or transit arrangement where one applies to their nationality and the trip is short enough. This is a different question from the medical routes covered elsewhere on this site, and the answer depends on your nationality and on arrangements that change, confirm the current position with the Chinese embassy or consulate you would apply to.

Where a host is willing to issue an invitation letter for a business visit, that comes from the host, and we handle the correspondence and translation around it at no extra charge.

6. How this is charged

• Programme coordination, quoted per programme before work begins, based on the number of hosts, cities and days.
• Interpretation, per day, at the rate published on How it works. The same rate whether the setting is a boardroom or a ward.
• Translation, per document set, quoted in advance.
• Flights, hotels and ground transport, arranged and paid by you, directly with the providers. We add nothing and take nothing from it.