Shanghai for business travellers: three days of meetings and what to do with the evenings

Most of our business clients know Shanghai through a supplier’s WeChat and a hotel near the office, and leave having seen neither the city nor, often, the factory they came for. This guide is the briefing we give them: how to set up three working days so the meetings go well, the evenings are worth having, and the weekend, if there is one, pays back.

Where to stay, by where your meetings are

Shanghai’s business districts are spread along metro line 2, and traffic between them at 8.30 am is slow. Choose the hotel by the district of your main meetings:

• Lujiazui (Pudong) for banks, finance, the big multinationals’ towers and anything near the exhibition centres; the tall international hotels, skyline views, and a tunnel or ferry to the Bund.
• Jing’an and Nanjing Road West for the professional-services firms, trading companies, consumer brands and most mid-size foreign companies; the densest cluster of four- and five-star hotels, the best evenings on foot.
• Hongqiao for the trade shows at the National Exhibition and Convention Center, for meetings in the western suburbs’ industrial parks, and for anyone taking the train to Suzhou, Kunshan or Yiwu suppliers; the hub’s hotels are efficient and soulless, and Jing’an is 25 minutes away.
• Zhangjiang and the Pudong tech parks for technology and pharma; stay there only if the meetings are there every day.

The where to stay guide has the neighbourhoods in detail. A hotel with a club lounge is worth it for the quiet breakfast meeting and the 9 pm sandwich.

Getting between meetings

DiDi (the ride-hailing app, with an English interface and international cards) is the default; a car arrives in three minutes and costs a fraction of a Melbourne taxi. The metro is faster than a car across town between 8 and 10 am and 4.30 and 7 pm, is clean and signed in English, and has security screening at every entrance, so add five minutes. For a day of four or five appointments in different districts, a car and driver by the day is cheaper than it sounds and removes the arithmetic; it is what we provide on our business trips.

Keep every address in Chinese characters on your phone; the driver reads that, not the romanised version.

Phone, payments and the paperwork

Set up before you fly: an eSIM or roaming so email, Google and WhatsApp keep working; Alipay with your corporate card for taxis, restaurants and the client’s coffee; and WeChat, because every Chinese counterpart will add you on it within a minute of meeting and the follow-up conversation happens there, not on email. Business cards still matter; bring plenty, with a Chinese side if you can.

Australians enter visa-free for business visits of up to 30 days at the time of writing; the visa guide tracks it. Hotels register foreign guests with the police at check-in; keep your passport with you for the train and the big buildings’ lobbies.

The meeting

Chinese business meetings are more formal at the start and more relational throughout than Australian ones:

• Arrive on time, which means ten minutes early.
• Cards are exchanged with both hands and read; seniority is observed in seating and in who speaks first.
• Tea is served; drink it.
• Small talk about the flight, Melbourne, the weather and family is not filler; it is how trust is built before the numbers. Rushing to the agenda reads as cold.
• “Yes” often means “I heard you”; “it might be difficult” usually means no. Confirm every agreed point in writing on WeChat the same day.
• Decisions may sit with someone not in the room. Ask who signs off, politely, early.
• Interpreters: if the counterpart’s English is partial, bring your own bilingual coordinator rather than relying on their staff; you want to hear what is said on their side of the table, which is one of the things our coordinators are for.

The dinner

If you are invited to dinner, go; the dinner is where the relationship is made. Let the host seat you (the guest of honour faces the door), try every dish, follow the host’s lead on toasts, and clink your glass below a senior person’s. Baijiu toasts are real; a sip each time is acceptable, and “I’m not drinking tonight, doctor’s orders” is a universally accepted exit. The host pays. Reciprocate with a dinner on your last night if the relationship warrants it, and let the coordinator book somewhere good. The scams and etiquette guide covers the rest of the table rules.

6 pm to midnight: what to do with the evenings

Three evenings, three different Shanghais:

1. The Bund. Walk the waterfront at dusk when the skyline lights come on, then a drink at one of the rooftop bars in the old bank buildings, then dinner in a lane restaurant in the French Concession. The classic first night, and it takes two hours.
2. The French Concession on foot. Cocktail bars, wine bars, the city’s best Sichuan and Shanghainese kitchens, jazz at a basement club, and the sense of a city with a life beyond the office towers. Take a guide for an evening if you want the doors opened; a day guide booking can be a 6 pm to 10 pm one.
3. Pudong from above. The observation deck of the Shanghai Tower or a hotel bar on the 90th floor, then a river cruise, then back to the hotel by midnight. For the last night or for clients.

Massage and foot massage parlours are a legitimate and excellent way to end a day of meetings; your hotel will recommend one. The jazz band at the Peace Hotel has been playing since before the war, more or less.

The Saturday

If the meetings end on Friday, do not fly home on Friday night. Suzhou is 25 minutes by train and a world away (our guide); Hangzhou is an hour (ours); a water town is a morning. A day with a guide and a car after a week of meetings is the best-value day in the trip, and clients who add it come back next time with their families.

When a coordinator pays for itself

A bilingual coordinator for the day does what a hotel concierge and a translator cannot: reads the factory licence, hears the aside the supplier’s manager makes to his colleague, negotiates in Chinese, keeps the driver moving, and books the dinner. On a supplier trip it is the difference between four visits and two, and between a price list and a price. Our business trips page has the day rates for coordinators and translators; for a conference week, half a day of coordination at the start to set up the phone, the payments and the car is usually enough.

A three-day shape

Tell us the meeting addresses and dates and we will suggest the hotel, the car days and the evenings; the contact page is the place, and we reply within one business day.