A consultant worth his commission is prepared to head out to the sticks for his/her customer's needs and stay there as long as necessary doing fieldwork and using acquired guanxi. Often it's the only way to get reliable information in China.

Needless to say, most Chinese consulting company employess prefer to stay in their office and maybe send a few emails or faxes. Shanghainese would probably outright refuse to leave city limits.

The end result is as you stated, seeing is believing.