Although the Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) is still more than 2 months away, Spring Festival Eve dinner reservations at nearly all restaurants in Shanghai have been made by customers well in advance, CCTV reported.

 

Around 2 million people in Shanghai enjoy their Spring Festival Eve dinners in restaurants every year since 2000. Supposing each client pays 100 yuan (US$128) for the dinner, Shanghai will gain more than 200 million yuan income merely from Spring Festival Eve dinners.

 

The price of such dinner this time is estimated to rise by 10 percent due to the increasing demand in the catering market and the price hike of the primary products, according to Shanghai Restaurants Association.

 

In a Guangdong-style food restaurant, many residents can be seen coming here to book for Spring Festival Eve dinner. The manager of the restaurant said booking for such dinner started on the last Spring Festival, and all seats have been reserved since then for the eve of this Spring Festival. Besides, the seats in the first week after the forthcoming Spring Festival are also hard to book now.

 

(Chinanews December 18, 2006)