China pet care services to raise prices during Spring Festival

Chinese New Year

Many Chinese travelers coming home for spring festival have left their pets in good hands at pet care centers and pet hotels. As the demand rose during the holiday season, so has the prices.
CCTV’S Mi Jiayi reported this story from Shaghai.

Zhang Zichan works in Shanghai, and plans to go back to her hometown during the Spring Festival. Meanwhile her cat Mi Jiang is headed for a pet hotel.

“Normally the price is 30 to 40 yuan a day, but I hear now that it’s 60 to 80 yuan a day,” Cat owner and pet hotel customer Zhang Zichan said. “Usually I spend about two to three hundred yuan on my cat every month, buying cat food and cat sand. But boarding my cat now for seven days will cost me more than 500 yuan.”

The wage triples for workers who care for the furry companions during Spring Festival. This cost increase can be attributed to the government’s requirement for companies to pay staff triple their normal wage on national holidays.

Qian Jing of Ningjing Cat Care Center said pet shop owners have to choose between whether to raise the customer’s price or closing for the holiday.

“Most of the staff is from other cities, so almost all of them want to go home during the Spring Festival. That boosts costs. Salaries take up more than 50 percent of the total cost in a pet shop,” Jing said. “So the shops either have to close during the festival, or raise prices.”

There is a growing number of shops in Shanghai, including Qian’s, which have decided not to raise their prices during the festival.

They said most of their clients are regular customers, and some of them began to book places for the pets in advance, some as early as two months ahead of the Spring Festival. It all makes for good business.

“It has increased dramatically. we basically have triple the amount of guests during the Chinese New Year,” Michael Liu, Owner of Paw n Us Pet Care Center said. “We do have higher revenue, but we also have higher cost, so basically they cancel each other out. On average, we probably get more about 30 to 40 percent during this time.”

Many pet centers are so advanced that they are offering extra services to treasured pets during the Chinese New Year including special meals and play times.

For owners who might suffer from serious separation anxiety, there’s a social network app that allows them to view what’s going on at the pet hotel, while they’re gone.