I must note that this was a post that I posted on another forum, which I wish to share with you all in regards to CP price increase at KTVs that eventually will bring down the whole fun of going to CP in the first place. This actually might even bring down the whole foundation of what CP is built upon, which is affordable fun for all mongers. Enjoy:

SSS my friend has a great theory that he once explained to me which I feel inclined to share with everyone on this board. It's his death spiral theory that is going on CP KTV scene recently.

First, let me give you a background of what is going on within China right now, which most of you are probably familiar with. China is getting richer! It's not just the coastal provinces and cities that are wealthy, it's also the inner provinces of Hunan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Chongqing, Sichuan, Shaanxi etc. As a result, many of the girls who use to come from these provinces to CP to work as a WG are finding no incentive to travel so far away from home anymore. Many of them are choosing to stay in their home province and just go to a big city there to work as a WG in the KTVs there, where they get paid even more money as a WG back at home. With the recent millionaires accumulating in developing third tier citities in the inner provinces of China, they too want have the capability to splurge and play in their KTVs as well. As a result, Girls are paid more, get to live closer to their home town or village. This equates to bad news for Guangdong Province KTVs in general, because it's becoming harder and harder to attract talent to KTVs.

So the logical solution for all of these CP KTVs and all other KTVs in all of Guangdong area is to increase the prices for sitting fees and take out fees, in an effort to get them back to CP KTVs to work. It seems great in theory. Initially this does attract lots of girls to come to CP. However, this brings about a negative consequence.

Let's take the classical 2-5-8 that was in place in CP for many years before this current jump in price.

Sitting fee is 200 and ST is 500 and LT is 800. That means that in the past, a girl only get 200 for sitting a customer. One pop gets them 250% more than just sitting there and LT overnight gets them 400% than just sitting there. There is a high incentive for girls to go out with customers. This model worked for many years.

Now the increase is 3-6-9.

Let's do the analysis here. 300 sitting fee, if they do ST 600 it's a 200% incentive than sitting and a 300% incentive for LT overnight session. You see how the incentive becomes less and less for girls to even want to go out? It may seem marginal, but psychologically it does play a part in indirectly making the less keen to want to go out.

Now it doesn't just stop there. Now CP these 2 years have really increased the fees in all of their KTV venues.

At Yihao models are 4-10-15, Eurasia is 5-15-20, Fuhao has super models for 4-10-15 and even Mayflower has models for 4-10-15 as well. Not to mention Royal Garden in Dalang Town is up to 1000 sitting fee 3000 ST and 5000 LT.

The hotels are all trying to repackage their girls and upsell them. As many of these girls are no taller or prettier than before. Many of the same girls as BSD has pointed out were only mere 2-5-8 girls 2 years ago.

The negative impact is extreme! If you are a model in these KTV establishment getting paid 400 or 500 just for sitting with a customer, what incentive do you have to even want to go out with customers? In fact I have single handedly witnessed with my own eyes, how a Yihao and Eurasia Model girl will be picked by a customer, walk into the room and act bored and bitchy and withdrawn on purpose, so that they customer will just pay them 400 or 500 to get rid of them because they are souring the mood. That same girl who just pocketed 400 or 500 from the customer will proceed to sit another room and get another 400 or 500 for another sitting fee.

Before the norm was that girl who give you good service were going to be rewarded with a take out so they could earn more money. Now, girls in KTVs are getting smarter. Why would they want act all nice and give great service to customers and get stuffed for 1500 and 2000, when they could act like a total ***** and sit 3 rooms and collect 1200 to 1500 by just doing nothing? What girl really wants to get stuffed by customers? Unless they really like the guy, really like sex or they want the money. But usually it's the last reason-money. But if you could get similar amount of money for doing less and not get poked, most girls will follow this trend. You will notice that girls these days are more and more picky. They will hide from you if they don't like you. Mommies can't even control their girls anymore because Mommies are having a hard time recruiting new girls. So recently, girls are getting off the hook even when they give bad service. Before many KTVs gave girls a quota of needing to have a certain number of rooms reserved through them or they get fined. Most KTVs have done away with all of these rules now because they are at the mercy of the girls-especially the pretty top tier girls.

You may think that sitting 2-3 rooms is out of the ordinary, but in reality on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and sometimes even Sunday, it is very possible for most models in the tier 1 KTVs to sit 2-3 rooms easily.

So here comes the death spiral. KTVs increase the fee structure for girls to attract girls to CP. Which is good, they get them in the door. But girls have lesser incentive to go out with customers as a result of the high sitting fees they get. So a monger comes up to CP in hopes of having a good time and bringing home a pretty girl back to their hotel room for the evening. They spend on room fee, snacks, alcohol, DJ fees and then their girl rejects them and does not want to go home with them or acts like a total ***** that you just don't even want to bring her back to your hotel room. Customer becomes upset and thinks that it's not worth it anymore they refuse to come to KTVs as much. Less customers come to KTVs and then business is bad and then Girls end up leaving CP for another destination where they can rake in bigger bucks. KTVs lose girls / talent and customers and their business goes sour. If hotel business goes sour than other auxiliary businesses such as restaurants, footies, DVD stores, Cell phone stores, clothing shops etc in the surrounding area gets affected, including real estate and Taxi / transportation businesses as well. That's where the death spiral comes in.

Right now there is already a shift in attitude of the girls. I find that girls do not give as good service as they use to anymore. Many appear distant and cold. This is a similar opinion shared by many veterans on the board such as Jim Traveler in our previous conversation. It's not like how it use to be anymore where girls were dying to be picked by customers. Nowadays, it's almost as if girls are choosing customers. Look around at Yihao and Eurasia's flower street. You approach a cuter girl and if the cuter girl doesn't like you- some hide away from you or look away or even walk away to the bathroom. This trend will continue for now. But how sustainable is it, I am not quite sure.

BUt one thing is for sure. There is an increased number of Taiwanese mongers coming into CP recently. It's not just the recent 4 day Taiwan holiday, but overall Taiwanese are starting to catch onto CP and so there is a huge influx of them recently. Mostly from group tours and also with groups of friends coming into town. I know because I have first handedly witnessed how they have single handedly increased rates at Swan Lake Hotel, Clipper and Walter Hotel etc. As a result, you feel that there is a whole lots more mongers in town these days and thus rooms and KTV rooms, footies and even Saunas are hard to book these days. But perhaps after the freshness factor wears off it may stabilize a bit. So the current Taiwanese influx could also attribute to high demand in bookings recently-thus temporarily sustain this outrageous increase in fees. But I really don't know how CP KTVs can sustain this constant increase in the girl's tipping fees. But one thing is for sure, the death spiral has begun.

AsnDragon

hopefully there is a gigantic influx of chicks so the market becomes flooded and becomes a buyers market
or we start supporting better service and boycotting bad service
but that will most likely not occur

The problem is trying to attract talent over to Guangdong area is very difficult. Some KTVs in the cities near their villages give higher sitting fees and take out fees than CP. I can already tell there's less HK mongers in CP over the years.As many girls come to CP and realize there's not that many customers they will go elsewhere to work in this industry where it is more lucrative.

On the other hand, this is good news for those bros among us who live or travel to other cities like Chengdu, Chongqing, etc. So instead of having to settle for the second rate girls, the "local" talents will be available.

One thing though is that from my conversations with PRC WGs, none of them will stay in their home province to do this work. Part of the attraction of coming to Dongguan or Macau is that nobody knows them and they can be somebody else. There is minimal danger of their family back home finding out that they are not actually working at a factory and earning lots through over time. So they will not do it in their home province. And if you're leaving the province, might as well go to Guangdong to do it.

Overall, this is just part and parcel of China developing. The WGs are just like any other industry. They will go where the money is. If say Lhasa is super developed and rich, the girls will naturally flock there.

It is good for those who do travel to inner China such as Chengdu and Changsha etc. Most WG will not work in the city close to their village. But for example, if her village was in Jiangjiajie in Hunan, she would work in Changsha as it is not as far to get to as going all the way to Dongguan or elsewhere in guangdong.

So if you are from Xiangfan in Hubei, you might work in Wuhan etc. It's far enough so that your family will not know about it, but close enough so it's not too much of a hassle to relocate to. I feels more like home when you are still in your own province nevertheless.

I don't know about Lhasa, but this is true in Chengdu and Chongqing. It's become big enough that girls are migrating there from other provinces around like Guizhou and Shaanxi etc. The center will be spread out, it's no longer concentrate near the Guangdong area any longer or even the coastal cities.

People outside of China have been spoiled for the past 25 years, not just in terms of WGs, but in consumer products as well. As with all things, I wouldn't consider this a death spiral, but the normalisation of prices. For all intents and purposes, prices in China are still cheap...even as far as WGs.

China has over 1 Billion people. Majority of the country still consists of villages that aren't the most prosperous. And it's probably still going to be a while before that changes... well at least...probably not within my mongering life. haha.

But let's enjoy it while it lasts. While there isn't likely going to be a shortage of lovelies working, the days of 1000 girl flower parades are probably numbered. And even if they continue to have them, I do have to wonder if the quality of the lovelies will still be as lovely.

~UD

I agree completely. Its simply price normalisation, its the end of budget mongering, not the end of CP. The rich Chinese will simply take the place of the budget mongers. Girls attitude are lousy true, but they improve tremendously when they see a stack of maos.

"A Stack of Maos"-- that I do agree with you completely. It's a wake up call for me to work harder!

I've seen this happen over the past decade as well, EVERYWHERE, not just the few places you've mentioned but there are still treasure troves if you go to west bumblefuck, (name your city).  China is such an odd place, let's say GZ or even the outskirts of GZ, 20 mins from Xinhui, you have to pay premium prices, 1500 overnight, 600 a pop, but come closer to xinhui and you'll find 200 pops and 600-800 overnighters, this is approximately a 4-6 mile difference.  China is moving so fast that the boundaries don't know what to do with themselves, soon us USA mongers won't even find it a deal to monger there anymore, we have to go to Darfur or something, LOL

Like all markets...when there is fresh money about everything seems to inflated but there comes a time when the market realises price is above valuation the market will self correct. Take for example, company value rises as punters expectsa certain returns and when that expectations are not met, the punters will pull out and thus drive share price down.

Overall, I dont think the KTV market would die it is simpy going thru a period of correction.

Take from a point of view of the KTV owner...

I have fresh girls coming to me prettier and willing to work for a lot less, if I have customers always complaining about the same girl and it is hurting my business, she is outta her! I see the current trend being related to the population control of yesteryears but give it a few more years a fresh generation of firls is ready to flood the market and now that attitude girls are in their early 30's trying to compete with younger ones forcing them to lower their $$ or provide better service.
I trust the consumer has more common sense then to throw money at bad service.

All the rage might be from Taiwan...but what about when the first batch of Taiwanese punters go back after a bad experience? tWords will spread fast and as a consequence the tourist will dry up, girls will need to do what they did to attract ppl or move to somewhere else where the same process of correction will apply.

Durfur? I don't know about that...perhaps Cambodia, Vietname, Burma first before going to Africa won't you say? Lesson of the story is, enjoy while it lasts because good things never last too long.

wow, girls in their 30's? I don't think I've ever done a girl in Asia or China who is in her 30's before. In china when you are in your 30's you are already expired inventory in my opinion.

The thing is, unless there is another economic crisis like in 1997 or the biggest crisis of 2008, prices that go up in these establishments rarely will ever go down.

When CP increases its price point, they basically squeeze out all of the less well off customers who can't afford to frequent their establishment. They will then hire agents to find customers from all over Asia who have the thicker wallets to come to CP. With the sudden economic rise of so many asian countries it's not that difficult in some ways. See how Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, China have been doing so well these few years, many new money will flood the market with new demand. However, these are still only smaller portion of the customers-overseas customers.

But CP's core business is still HK mongers nevertheless. they are close and near and can come over every weekend, which all other punters from SE Asia cannot do, not even Taiwan. Once HK mongers start moving elsewhere for fun, CP will see a decline in their business overall. I have seen the changes over the past 9 years. HK monger's peak was 2007 and then afterwards, after the financial crisis hit in 2008, i see less and less HK mongers crossing into CP these few years.