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A woman carrying an armload of international perfumes and other cosmetic products makes her way toward a cashier at a duty-free shop in Sanya, South China’s Hainan province. Foreign fragrance makers control 60 percent of the Chinese perfume market. [Photo / China Daily]

BEIJING - Xu Yue just bought a new bottle of fragrance last week, his fifth this year.

The 28-year-old IT engineer in Beijing has spent more than 4,000 yuan ($625) on fragrances every year since he started working in 2008.

“Fragrances make me feel energetic,” Xu said, “I used to just try to hide my odor, when I was a soccer player at high school.”

The peak season for fragrances starts in the summer and lasts until February.

The small market share of international perfume companies hold does not shake their confidence in doing business in China - after all, it is a growing consumer market for cosmetic products.

But every time they plan to launch a new product or a brand in the marketplace, they have to first train consumers.

China is Asia’s second-largest cosmetics market, and the eighth in the world, but perfume makers get only a tiny slice of that market because fragrances are not considered a basic necessity in Chinese beauty care.

The cosmetics industry saw an 88.9 billion yuan turnover in 2010, and the figure is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan in 2011, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. But fragrances account for only 1 percent of that.

According to Euromonitor International, a London-based company that conducts strategy research of consumer markets, China had a 3.77 billion yuan fragrance market in 2010.

A report released by Horizon Research Consultancy Group in 2010 said that Chinese consumers bought only 1 percent of the fragrances in the world - but the Chinese market has grown by 15 to 25 percent each year since 2008.

Foreign perfume makers, who control 60 percent of the Chinese market, see the slow pace of consumption as their biggest problem.

“In our consumer research, we found that lots of consumers love the design and the scent of fragrances, but they’re not in the habit of using them every day,” said Ghislain Devouge, general manager of P&G Prestige Greater China.

Devouge, whose company owns perfume brands including Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana and Hugo Boss, attributes the low rate of usage to a lack familiarity with fragrances.

“We try to address the lack of category knowledge via our in-store brand ambassadors and online activities,” Devouge told China Daily.

The company also organizes workshops about the history of perfume and usage tips, he said.

However, business insiders say physiological factors play a larger role in the Chinese people’s less frequent use of perfume.

Westerners use fragrance to hide their body odor, and it is a daily necessity in the West, but the situation in China is different, said Wu Zhigang, chief marketing consultant of Shengshi Chuanmei Consultancy Co.

“Fragrances do not have as long a history in China as in the West,” Wu said.

The Chinese began using scented soap in the early 20 century and fragrances from the West came to China in 1980s. The original function of perfume in China has been lost, and fragrance, which is important in daily life in the West, is dispensable, he said.

“Foreign perfume companies should find a strategy suited to the market, if they want to develop the business in China,” Wu said. “They should pay more attention to consumers’ preferences,” he said.

Chinese consumers have different tastes from those of Westerners, which is why some fragrances popular in the West have weak sales in China, said Zhao Peng, a perfume consultant with ADE China Co Ltd, a distributor of some foreign perfume brands, including Bvlgari, Hugo Boss and Davidoff.

“Westerners like strong perfumes,” Zhao said.

Eastern fragrances from India or Nepal are also among their favorites, because the strong exotic scents can mask their body odor caused by their dietary habits, Zhao said.

Chinese consumers prefer light, flowery fragrances, which conforms with Chinese emotional reserve, he said. Cologne, for instance, which contains less perfume, is acceptable to many male professionals in China.

Coty Inc, the world’s largest fragrance manufacturer by turnover and the owner of Davidoff, Chole and Calvin Klein, launched Cool Water, the flagship product of Davidoff, as soon as it entered China in 2000. That product is still one of the best sellers in the market because of its fresh fragrance.

When Prada launched its perfume in Asia, most consumers did not accept its strong fragrance. The Italian luxury brand substituted Prada Tender - a softer perfume.

Kenzo Perfume, which belongs to LVMH Group, also plans to design a fragrance especially for Chinese tastes.

“There are still very few fragrances designed specially for the Chinese because of the high cost of research,” Zhao said. “Companies can’t recover their costs from China’s small market.”

But Devouge said China is definitely a high potential market for fragrances.

The younger generation, which has more contact with the Western lifestyle than their parents’ generation does, is the main buyer of fragrances in China.

“Fragrance buyers in China have obvious characteristics,” said Zhao Peng, “They are younger than in other countries.”

Zhao said young people think perfume can improve their quality of life and it is a mark of courtesy to others.

Fragrances are a kind of gift rather than daily necessity, said Zhao Shicheng, chief executive officer of Shangpin.com, a luxury online retailer in Beijing.

Zhao said the high season for perfume starts in the summer and lasts to Valentine’s Day in February “because the second half of the year has various holidays, such as Christmas and New Year”. Sales typically decline from March.

Shangpin.com, which markets more than 100 perfume brands, including Burberry, Gucci and Channel, sold about 2,000 bottles of perfume in June and July, Zhao said.

Perfume sales reach a summer peak around Aug 6, Chinese Valentine’s Day.

“Our turnover soared by 40 percent in the days leading up to the Chinese Valentine’s Day,” said Zhang Ting, a perfume saleswoman at the Beijing Modern Plaza.

Zhang said most of her customers were buying perfume for their girlfriends or wives and one young man bought three bottles because he was not certain which one his girlfriend would like.

A man with a torch walks in the Natur Eis Palast (Nature Ice Palace) inside the Hintertuxer Glacier in the Austrian province of Tyrol, Aug 10, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Tourists take photos in the snow at the Hintertuxer Glacier in the Austrian province of Tyrol, Aug 10, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Tourists take photos in the snow at the Hintertuxer Glacier in the Austrian province of Tyrol, Aug 10, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Discoverer Roman Erler walks in the Natur Eis Palast (Nature Ice Palace) inside the Hintertuxer Glacier in the Austrian province of Tyrol, Aug 10, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

A general view of the Natur Eis Palast (Nature Ice Palace) inside the Hintertuxer Glacier in the Austrian province of Tyrol, Aug 10, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

Tourists walk in the snow at the Hintertuxer Glacier in the Austrian province of Tyrol, Aug 10, 2011. [Photo/Agencies]

An astonishing glacial “palace” discovered by accident four years ago has become a quirky summer tourist attraction in the Zillertal Alps of Austria.

Since glaciers are both fragile and organic - the ice shrinks, grows and moves - there was initial resistance to opening the icy cave to the public. But little movement of the ice wall was recorded in a year of observation, and The Nature Ice Palace (Natur Eis Palast), inside the Hintertuxer Glacier in the Austrian province of Tyrol, has been open to the public since November 2008.

Roman Erler of Natursport Tirol, an adventure travel company, made the surprise discovery when he found a hollow in the glacier at 3,288 meters (10,787 feet). Local tour operators say the temperature inside the cave is constant between 0 degree C and -2 degree C.

But outside, the bright sun glistening off the snow and ice can still give the bikini-clad an overall tan.

A plethora of ice crystals and pillars give the “palace” its name. A snowy pathway from the viewing platform near the highest point of the glacier leads to the palace gateway.

The site features a frozen glacial lake, a glittering crystal chamber up to 15 meters high, ice stalactites up to 7 meters long, frozen waterfalls and many spectacular natural ice formations

New butterflies arrive at the exhibit by basket. Photos: Wang Zi/GT

Since last month when a group of new visitors fluttered into the venerable royal garden at Jingshan Park, crowds of tourists have been drawn to see the new exhibit of more than 40 kinds of butterfly from around the world.

Particularly popular with children, the 12,000-square-meter outdoor mesh enclosure provides an intimate, up-close view of nature.

At first glance, the exhibition seems like a display of the brightly colored flowers and plants gathered under the tent. But among the rich assembly of butterfly-friendly flowers, the flies themselves flit from petal to petal, occasionally landing on surprised visitors.

The butterflies are contributed by the Qi Cai Butterfly Garden in Shunyi district. The exhibition is open through August 31, and they will be sending frequent shipments of new butterflies to bolster the dwindling population on display.

Zheng Xiaoying of the Qi Cai Butterfly Garden said they released about 10,000 butterflies into the enclosure with the first shipment, but there are very few of those original ones left, so they’ve been dropping off a couple hundred more from time to time to fill out the numbers, but there still isn’t the fluttering crowd originally expected.

“The average life expectancy of most butterflies is about seven days,” said Lu Linlin, staffer from Jinshan Park, when asked why there weren’t more butterflies in the exhibit. “The constant rain and the human interactions are also big causes of the rapid diminishment of the butterfly population here.”

But there are still some prize specimens to be seen.

“The most eye-catching butterfly here is probably the Troides aeacus, the largest butterfly in China,” explained Zheng. “With its wing stretched an adult one can be 16 to 17 centimeters wide.”

The Sasakia charonda formosana, the national butterfly of Japan, is another of the event’s celebrities.

The 63-year-old Ms Wang came with her 5-year-old granddaughter, who was gleefully playing hide and seek with the butterflies.

“Usually she just loves butterflies and is always painting these little creatures in kindergarten,” she said, pointing out the little girl who was enraptured by the butterflies. “She loves everything butterfly related, including clothing, books, fridge magnets and anything you can find. So this is a lovely chance for her to get close to nature.”

China’s currency should appreciate against the U.S. dollar, but at a gradual pace and within a certain extent, Bank of China President Li Lihui said before the opening of the China-U.S. Business Dialogue, which was held in Beijing on Friday.

“Rapid appreciation will strike a heavy blow to Chinese enterprises, particularly export-oriented businesses. This will hinder China’s overall economic restructuring,” Li said.”

The yuan has already appreciated more than 20 percent against the U.S. dollar since China unpegged it from the greenback in 2005 as part of its exchange rate reforms. In the first half of this year, it gained 2.33 percent.

“We hope the exchange rate between the yuan and the dollar will remain relatively stable,” said Li.

The China-U.S. Business Dialogue is one of the events on U.S. Vice President Joe Biden’s agenda during his six-day official visit to China. The conference was attended by Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, as well as senior executives from prestigious companies and institutions from both countries.

Li also voiced hope for a stable U.S. dollar, as the Bank of China, the country’s biggest foreign exchange bank, holds more than 200 billion U.S. dollars in foreign assets.

Li gave his vote of confidence to the U.S. government in managing its own economy.

“Of all the Western economies, the U.S. economy remains the most robust. U.S. debt remains the best source of foreign currency reserves,” said Li.

“In the long run, the U.S. government will steer its economy out of trouble. After all, the United States remains the world’s strongest economy,” said Li.

In regards to expectations for a new round of quantitative easing in the U.S., Li said “it’s hard to predict, but if it is launched, it might not be as aggressive as the first two rounds. However, the QE3 (third round of quantitative easing) will certainly have a significant impact on the global inflation outlook and market liquidity.”

The U.S. Federal Reserve in November 2010 decided to purchase 600 billion dollars in long-term Treasury securities by the end of June 2011, a rate of about 75 billion dollars per month, marking the second round of quantitative easing.

Following the U.S. debt crisis, many have speculated that another round of quantitative easing is around the corner.

In regards to two-way investment between China and the U.S., Li said “since the U.S. economy still faces many uncertainties, the expansion of two-way investment will be hampered. The U.S. economy has not recovered at the pace we originally expected, but we are still confident.”

Li said that he hopes there will be closer economic cooperation between the two nations.

It will be a win-win situation if more Chinese enterprises land in the U.S. market, Li said.

Biden’s visit to China comes on the heels of an unprecedented U.S. credit rating downgrade earlier in August, which created global uncertainty about the safety of dollar assets.