New Face of Shenzhen: Swiss-inspired Interlaken OCT photos

When you hear “Shenzhen” what images come to mind?

Probably not a Swiss-themed resort replete with a Swiss mountain village, a man-made lake, and a 5 star resort.  But then again you probably haven’t seen the Interlaken OCT Hotel Resort!

I think of iPhone factories

For me I think of factory towns, like the walled factory city of Foxconn (Hon Hai) with 270,000 workers, “schools, hospital, fire station, swimming pool, athletic field a separate area for the basketball courts and even a bookstore.”(source: Wall Street Journal and PMP Today):

Welcome to the Interlaken OCT, a Swiss inspired theme resort — not the Shenzhen you expected

In another case of how diverse China is and how impossible it is to generalize, I’m currently at the China Travel Distribution Summit which is held at the Interlaken OCT Resort at Dameisha, Shenzhen, about 40 km outside of the Shenzhen city center.  After driving through a container port, then a beach-themed resort on the coast, then a series of switchback roads similar to the curvy roads on Hong Kong Island, we pulled into a “mountain” valley home to a master planned theme resort called Interlaken OCT.  Here are some photos.

Interlaken Swiss town across from the manmade lake of the Interlaken OCT hotel resort:

Decorative boat in the small Interlaken lake:

Main Interlaken OCT hotel with tower:

Main Interlaken OCT resort viewed from the platform in the middle of the lake

Another mountain resort under construction on the mountainside:

Covered bridge with hand-painted murals, similar to the Lucerne bridge that was burned down by an arsonist:

Statue in the lake with Interlaken OCT resort in background:

Interlaken village.  Very Swiss, except for the cheesy shade that looks like its made out of red-blue bags:

Statue in the Interlaken “town square”

Walkway on the lake:

Very idyllic isn’t it.  Interlaken OCT is a state owned enterprise that is obviously spending a lot of the people’s money to develop the tourism industry in Shenzhen, which apparently has lots of other theme parks.  Not sure who the target market is for this, but it sounds like they want to replicate the Interlaken model to other cities across China.

Its crazy-@ss, ambitious sh*t like this that makes China so charming to me.  What other country has the entrepreneurial ambition, the vision, the verve and the near insanity to do something like this?

That would be the United States.  Perhaps in 10 years, Shenzhen will surpass Orlando in theme parks and tourism, just as Macau now surpasses Las Vegas in gambling revenue.