Chapter 54: Territory

With so many eyes in the shop, Tang Wen had no intention of explaining further and instead asked:

"I might go to E City this afternoon. Want to come along? I'll take you."

"No."

Guo Panpan refused outright; she wouldn't run out at night.

But a moment later she said:

"If you go into town, could you help me find my dad? Ask him to make a phone call. My mom keeps saying she needs to find him for something; it's so annoying."

"Your dad?"

Guo Panpan immediately listed several game hall names; clearly Guo Liangchen was a repeat offender.

Tang Wen didn't overthink it; he'd just keep an eye out if he had time.

At Dawan Town Government, Chen Yonggui and the township head who had rushed over were battling with Deputy Town Mayor Lu Jun.

Building a collective enterprise in Dawan Village was a good thing; neither the town nor the township would oppose it.

But how to guarantee villagers' interests, how to ensure tax payments wouldn't be affected, and what preferential policies could be enjoyed—all depended on each side's capabilities.

To secure the best conditions for Dawan Fisheries, Chen Yonggui rambled on about the high quality of Dawan Village's human resources and local environmental advantages, then tacked on a string of phrases Tang Wen had taught him: "comprehensive balanced development," "focus on blue ocean resources," "maximize overall resource benefits," and the like.

Fortunately, both Chen Yonggui and Township Head Yang had some reputation in the town, so the company setup and preferential conditions basically met expectations.

Tang Wen inevitably came up in the discussion; as an enterprise that had just made a small appearance in the Daily News, Lu Jun had heard of him.

Chen Yonggui's act of directly lending a boat to help the village develop greatly strengthened Lu Jun's goodwill.

For a newly established shipbuilding enterprise, this was already full-throated support.

After Chen Yonggui finished his battle, the matter of Dawan Fisheries was basically settled; now it was Tang Wen's turn.

Sure enough, upon hearing about developing a tourism zone, Lu Jun wore the same expression Chen Yonggui had worn earlier.

Tourism economics hadn't yet widely taken off in this era, and he truly couldn't imagine what special features E City might have.

In fact, even decades later, E City's tourism industry could only be described as existing; outside Guangdong Province, it remained obscure.

Tang Wen could only polish up the same pitch he'd delivered to the village chief yesterday, then repeat it word for word to Lu Jun and Yang Tai.

Their forward-looking concepts and meticulously detailed development plans sparked their interest, but standing at a higher vantage point, Lu Jun immediately zeroed in on the core issue:

"First, tourism ultimately relies on drawing people in to spend money. How do we attract enough tourists?"

How to attract them?

Recalling how he himself had been drawn to one scenic spot after another, Tang Wen quickly thought of many methods:

"Most importantly, advertising. None of the three place names—E City, Dawan Town, Dawan Village—have gained recognition. We must first promote ourselves to let more people know we exist.

There are essentially four channels: television, newspapers, offline promotions, and the internet."

"The internet?"

Lu Jun was somewhat surprised; he understood the first three, but the internet... he knew of it, yet what did that have to do with advertising?

The internet in this era was still an emerging concept, far from mature.

Platforms like Tieba, Bihu, and New Lang and a host of other social websites hadn't even appeared yet; the internet didn't yet possess large-scale promotional capabilities.

Chen Yonggui and Yang Tai also looked over; this was another new concept they hadn't heard of.

Tang Wen rubbed his nose and lowered his voice:

"This idea is actually slightly unethical. You all know every unit has a fax machine. We can obtain fax numbers for units nationwide through the Yellow Pages, then send ad flyers directly; over 90% of fax machines will automatically print them out.

We don't need to spend a cent; just press send."

Tang Wen's recollection of this was purely a memory revival; before his transmigration, his mother's workplace had a fax machine that frequently received strange ad faxes, and without careful attention, they'd run out of paper in a single day.

To stop it, you'd either have to block the sending numbers or switch to manual print mode, but neither option was very convenient, so...

"No, no, that's too wicked."

Dawan Town certainly had fax machines, but in such a small place, this tactic was unheard of.

Just imagining someone using another's paper to print their own ads made Lu Jun want to immediately check his own unit's printer.

This idea was simply too vicious; how had Tang Wen come up with it?

They called this internet promotion? If so, wouldn't everyone coming from the ads be here for revenge?

Lu Jun hurriedly said:

"Television, newspapers, distributing flyers—anything goes, but this absolutely not. Old Chen, if I find out, I'll pin your name on it!"

Chen Yonggui, unfairly saddled with the blame, stood dumbfounded; the idea came from Tang Wen, yet he was the one who'd have to take the fall.

Lu Jun then turned to Tang Wen:

"This won't do, but ordinary methods lack sufficient promotional impact. Do you have any more creative intended thoughts?"

Tang Wen stroked his chin and suddenly had an idea:

"Actually, yes. A tourism resort must have a unique feature. Our feature is... Zhenzhugang style!"

Tang Wen snatched a marker from the coffee table, took Yang Tai's notebook, tore off a page, and quickly sketched a rough map of Dawan Town's coastline while speaking:

"For a typical resort, food and lodging need no elaboration; just use top ingredients, hire skilled chefs, and serve some grilled meat and sashimi. The focus is on fun!"

"Take this spot called Dawan. We'll build a port modeled after Zhenzhugang, with architecture mimicking the U. S. military, and place several warships inside.

Of course, the warships will be facades made of wood and sheet metal, but as long as they look convincing, that's enough; after all, how many people have seen real ones?"

"The cannons on the warships can fire a few salute shells. When there are many tourists, we can fire a few rounds to simulate a naval battle, and even let tourists participate.

The port staff will all wear naval crew uniforms, performing various maneuvers like in real combat. Tourists can pay to play the role of captain and command the battle.

Once the port is running well, there'll be hula dances and bikini song-and-dance performances. Finally, guests eat and sleep at the grand hotel, then wake up and continue playing!"

"On that empty strip of land above, we'll build an airport, outfit a few small planes painted to look like Zero fighters, and recreate the scene of the surprise attack on Zhenzhugang. Of course, tourists paying to experience this will also cost money.

If tourists are wealthy enough, they can even experience the full service: play the roles of Nimitz or Halsey, review an army of extras portraying U. S. forces, or even hold a fleet review."

"You see, isn't this set full of character, isn't it attractive enough?"

Lu Jun nodded vigorously, and Chen Yonggui and Yang Tai nodded along.

Tang Wen's plan was actually a plagiarism of next year's movie "The Dream Factory" by Grandpa Ge; at least it was a well-known film script, and even just hearing it made the three think it was excellent.

But after Lu Jun nodded, he immediately shook his head, and Chen Yonggui and Yang Tai quickly stopped nodding.

"This idea is good, but it is too difficult to implement.

I believe your shipyard has a way to build model ships, but hotels and road infrastructure require huge investments.

Moreover, doing a good job portraying Zhenzhugang requires many props; the investment is too high, not even selling the entire Dawan Village would be enough. And the planes, you can't get them."

This time it was Chen Yonggui's turn to interrupt:

"No, we have the planes, we also have the American military vehicles; we can do a good job portraying them.

The vehicle we drove over in today is a genuine American Jeep."