The prominent Spokane business organization Greater Spokane Incorporated, in collaboration with the International Trade Alliance, of Spokane, is planning a nine-day trip to China in mid-March for interested members and their families, says Dawn Picken, GSIs spokeswoman.


She says the trip will combine business and culture by including introductions to Chinese business leaders, leading tours of factories, and making a visit to a Chinese economic development zone, as well as stopping at the Great Wall and the famed Forbidden City, in Beijing.


Picken says the trip will expose travelers to a broad view of the business climate in China and the possibilities of conducting business overseas, but wont focus on any one industry.


Several (GSI) member companies are already doing business over there, she says.


Citslinc International Inc., of Monterey Park, Calif., will be the tour operator for the trip, which departs from Seattle to Beijing on March 14, says Picken. She says this is the first time GSI has worked with Citslinc, but the company comes highly recommended from other business organizations that have used the company for similar trips.


About 100 people from the Spokane area are expected to participate in the trip, which will cost GSI members $2,000 and nonmembers $2,650.


Those charges will cover airfare, hotel accommodations, food, and land transportation, as well as GSI membership dues for nonmembers.


Some of GSIs board members and a small contingent of other members regularly embark on annual legislative trips to Olympia, and Washington, D.C., and delegations of 10 or fewer have attended trips to destinations such as the immense headquarters of Community Health Systems Inc., which just bought Empire Health Systems, of Spokane.


Picken says the China trip differs from the rest because it is open to all members and their families, and will be heavy on the culture and lighter on the business, which is the opposite of most GSI trips. As far as I know, this is the first large international trip weve undertaken, based on the number of people expected to participate, she says.


Members of other business chambers of commerce, as well as any of GSIs partners or affiliate organizations, can go along on the China trip for the same price as members of GSI.