Expats head to greener pastures

Expats are very concerned with their future development, Parkinson says. Therefore, they believe the developing markets in smaller cities provide better career development opportunities.

"Most expats that are relocated to these cities are promised a promotion or planned future development from the parent company," he adds.

Also, the smaller cities are good locations for expats who want to develop their own businesses.

Cheaper startup costs in lower-tier cities and subsidies offered by some city governments also attract foreigners planning to set up businesses, says Parkinson.

In September 2007, an ambitious business graduate from Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, Canada, flew to China to look for work. Adam McWhirter went to Chongqing, a mountainous city in Southwest China.

McWhirter is now a well-connected Chongqing representative of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China and the general manager of the China management team of Maxxelli Real Estate, a company that offers relocation services to expats who work in tier-two cities in China.

"I came here for the opportunities and the opportunities in second-tier cities in China never end," McWhirter says.

He believes that whatever can be done in tier-one cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou, has already been done.

"No matter what you do, as long as you are ambitious, you can take off, because things are changing so fast here," he says.

McWhirter says opportunities and challenges are what he loves about tier-two cities in China.

Maxxelli Real Estate was set up in Chengdu in 2006 for a similar reason.

"There were hundreds of companies doing what we do in Shanghai and Beijing, but there was no competition in the smaller cities," he says.

The market in tier-two cities is smaller, but there is great opportunity, he says. His company now has 13 offices in China, including Changsha, Xi'an, Suzhou and Hangzhou.

According to McWhirter, his company has offices in megacities, such as Beijing or Guangzhou, because important policy decisions are often made there and the company needs a presence there.

But tier-two cities will remain the focus of Maxxelli Real Estate.

"The market in Beijing and Shanghai is huge, but the second-tier markets still have the most growth potential with more foreign multinationals and Chinese multinationals expanding their businesses to smaller cities," he says.

McWhirter also says his company plans to have 20 offices across China by the end of 2014.

Some expats say China's smaller cities are better to work in than similar cities in other countries.

Language and cultural differences do not pose problems for these expats, says Bukenberger.

"The younger generation in China speak good English," he says, "and I did not find any culture differences in my life here."

Bukenberger says at the start his family spent a little time looking for the right places to buy their daily goods. Now they know where to buy anything they need.

Mariette appreciates the safety and security in China's smaller cities, and says the only thing that annoys him is the difficulty in buying English books and newspapers there.

The lower living costs in smaller cities also allow expats to enjoy a better quality of life than they would in the big cities.

However, foreign companies do encounter some problems in sending executives to smaller cities.