France’s attempt to woo Chinese visitors is paying dividends. According to Le Monde, the Palace of Versailles attracted 781,000 visitors from China last year—a hefty 11% of its total annual attendance of 7.4 million people. The 17th-century chateau has made every effort to welcome Chinese guests (the palace’s canny officials even publicise Versailles on China’s main social-media network, WeChat), but not everything has gone to plan. According to Jean-Paul Cluzel, formerly the head of the government culture body Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Chinese visitors “dislike finding cups labelled ‘Made in China’ [in the shop] at Versailles… this means we have to go to enormous lengths to find French manufacturers”, he says.
