Guess what the athletes who participated in the Winter Olympics bought and sent home? Come to the post office for answers!
During the "Double Olympics" period, Beijing Post set up 12 postal service outlets in relevant competition venues and non-competition venues in Beijing and Yanqing respectively around the demand for postage for the event, providing athletes and staff with postal services such as postage tickets and parcel delivery.
The temporary post office of the Winter Olympic Village is located in the Sunken Square of the Winter Olympic Village, with an area of 248 square meters, and there are 24 service personnel in the closed loop and 4 service personnel outside the closed loop to provide "9 in the morning and 9 in the evening" service here. Since its operation on January 10, 2022, it has been full of guests, with athletes from all over the world living in the village and staff of the delegation coming here to buy philatelic products or send express packages.
The hottest day was February 5, the second day of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games, and "Common Future" and "Light of Hope" became the brightest "twin stars" in the Olympic Village. At 9 o'clock, the whole line of products was officially opened to the public, and at 8 o'clock, a large number of customers "broke into" the temporary post office, wanting to buy stamps for the opening ceremony, and the customer phone calls were also one after another. The Chinese delegation, the Olympic Organizing Committee, the field operation team, Chinese and foreign athletes, volunteer teams, and customers from various fields lined up at the door.
In addition to stamps, first day covers and postcards are also popular with "villagers", who buy postcards or first day covers and cover them with various commemorative stamps, especially the commemorative stamps of ice piers and snow melting patterns. Stamped, addressed, and then sent directly, these letters full of Winter Olympic blessings will be sent across the ocean to various places. Half of the employees were so busy that they didn't care about lunch and dinner, and at the end of the day, they achieved 147,000 yuan in philatelic sales.
Parcel delivery services are also an important business. Xiang Zheng, head of the temporary post office of the Winter Olympic Village, said that many athletes or staff will immediately come to the post office to send souvenirs after purchasing souvenirs. They found that foreign athletes' favorite items to mail were postcards and Winter Olympic badges, which they not only loved to buy, but also exchanged with each other and then sent to family and friends; Chinese athletes and volunteers had a special love for various Winter Olympic souvenirs, including ice piers, snow-melting plush toys, styling handmade, keychains, etc., which were the items they delivered the most. "Our work couldn't stop at all, and on February 7 alone, we pulled away two truckloads of express parcels and received and sent nearly 200 orders a day."
Packages mailed out from here must go through three rounds of epidemic prevention and elimination: spraying and killing every two hours at the post office, and disinfecting cabinets for letters; after delivery to the mail truck, one hour of ultraviolet lamp disinfection; and at the processing center, another static disinfection is carried out to ensure the safety of the mail to the greatest extent.