Your boss who asked you to stay by your house phone the other weekend has asked you to fly to China and join him in the effort now to set up your company’s branch there within the next few months. He asked you also to buy for him an air mattress that is similar to the one you used for that lazy weekend of floating and reading in your pool while waiting for his call from Beijing.

You have mentioned that to him in one of your frequent phone conversations about the new company office in China that the two of you will spearhead in its organization. You will both concentrate on this until the office is set up and running smoothly, so you expect to stay out in the Chinese mainland for some months, if not years.

You got the information that China is such a huge country with an equally huge population, just right for your company’s business of manufacturing and selling of branded wines of different kinds. You have been with this company for sometime and you noticed its continued growth over the years as you observed that there has never been a slack in the yearly sales of its products.    

The owner of the company’s philosophy is that he could not be in the wrong business, since man by nature turns to alcohol to celebrate when he is happy. Likewise, when he is sad, he also turns to alcohol to forget about his problems. Therefore, the owner happily concludes, he can always expect sales of his wines, anytime of the year. As long as there are many people who drink alcoholic drinks, he can always look forward to increasing sales every year.

Now, this trip of yours to China to join your immediate boss in setting up your expanded operations there is the result of the musings of the business owner and continuous talks in your boardroom of moving out to that country to sell your wines to the one and a half billion population there.

The main task of carrying out this expansion plan has fallen on the shoulder of the company’s president with you as the Vice President for Sales, directly assisting him. Both of you are the first batch of the company’s executives to be fielded out since you were the ones who did some research on the nature of the Chinese market for liquor and wines.

Your initial research showed that the Chinese wine market is regional, meaning that the different regions in that huge country have differing preferences for the kind and brand of the wines. You have decided with your immediate boss to tour the Chinese mainland to confirm on the ground this research finding you got beforehand.

Since you both do not know yet the facilities out there in the remote countryside of China, your boss believes that one of the basic needs you must anticipate is your lodging problem. To prepare for any situation out there he thinks that inflatable air mattresses should be part of your luggage.