(ECNS) -- Luxury mooncakes have resurfaced this year despite an anti-extravagance campaign that has cooled the market in recent years, the Beijing Youth Daily reports.
Hotels are promoting mooncake gift packages, with prices ranging from 200 yuan ($31.18) to 2,000 yuan, for the upcoming Mid-Autumn Festival, which falls on Sept. 27 this year.
Mooncakes only take up a small portion of the value of these gift packages, though. An 899-yuan gift basket offered by Hilton Beijing Wangfujing includes a 198-yuan mooncake package while the remaining 701 yuan goes on a box of chocolates, exotic snacks and a bottle of French wine.
At China World Summit Wing, buyers of a 1,588-yuan and 1,888-yuan basket have a total of 13 options to choose from, including wines, olive oils, abalone, iPhone cases and Moutai liquor, that have price tags ranging from 88 yuan to 1,000 yuan.
The report also said that packaging fees account for roughly half of the value of mooncake gift packages on sale at major bakery chains in Beijing, while a variety of mooncakes are only offered in package forms.
Zhao Yuqi, a Beijing disciplinary official, is calling on related departments to improve reporting systems, tighten supervision and enforcement of discipline and step up crackdowns on the squandering of public funds on luxury mooncakes, according to the paper.
