InterContinental Hotels, one of the world’s largest hotel groups in terms of rooms, has said it will open 100 more hotels in China in the coming two-and-a-half years.

The group also said it will expand its China staff from 30,000 to 50,000 in the next 18 months.

Note that the brand includes InterContinental, Crowne Plaza, Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express under either management or franchising contracts.

IHG runs some 3,900 hotels with 585,000 rooms in nearly 100 countries and territories under seven brands.

The group added 70 hotels in China last year.
Source: Shanghai Daily

Times look good for the backpacker hotels. There are a lot of backpackers around.

Times look even better for the economy hotels especially in China. Offering a clean, well maintained room for the night with Internet access means boom times. Look to see the number of economy hotels expand by at least five times, perhaps more, over the next few years.

At the top, the super-luxury hotels where someone else is typically paying the bill all seems to be well. There are spas, shopping arcades, superior restaurants, concierges who seem to use telepathy to guess what you want. All of it comes at a price but there are apparently many willing to pay that price.

It is in the middle echelons that times are hard, where the independents, and to a lesser extent, the chains, face lean times.

Some of the mid-range chains are rebranding to make themselves more attractive.

Holiday Inn, the world’s biggest hotel chain, is spending, as a first stage, US$1 billion in rebranding.

Accor, the French hotel giant, is going to push Sofitel from being merely an upmarket chain to a luxury brand.

The writer had an amazing lunch in the Sofitel Wentworth last week — someone else was paying — where the food, the wine and the service were worthy of a good restaurant in Paris. Except no Parisian restaurant has, I promise you, a female Irish Japanese sommelier.

There is a problem. If a mid-level hotel spends enough money to push it up at least one, preferably two levels, you are talking very serious money. Most independents in China at this level cannot afford it. They will have to either repackage as a budget hotel or suffer.
Source: Times on Line

InterContinental Hotels Group has signed a management contract to operate three hotels and over 800 rooms in Changzhou, near Shanghai.

There will be one Crowne Plaza hotel and two Holiday Inn Express hotels within an integrated city centre commercial complex. The three hotels will be developed by Top Spring Group, a Hong Kong retail investment and real estate developer. Top Spring Group has also signed a strategic partnership with IHG which means IHG will be running all of Top Spring’s upcoming hotel developments across China.

The three hotels already signed up will be part of the Landmark International Commercial Center, located in the centre of Changzhou. The integrated complex with have over 580,000 square meters of retail outlets, offices, exhibition space, entertainment facilities, residences and hotels.

Changzhou is a key tourism destination, attracting more than 20 million tourists with tourism revenues of RMB400 million in 2006. It is also a significant manufacturing base, home to industrial parks that house various international and domestic companies.
Source: Hotel News Resource

China’s first industry set of guidelines to regulate budget inns is expected as early as the end of the year. The national standard, to be drafted by the China Hotels Association, is aimed to help regulate the industry.

At the moment there is no doubt that in the face of tough competition some budget hotels are offering service and accommodation that do not meet any standards simply because there are none.

Zhang Minghou, an official with the China Hotels Association, told Shanghai Daily, ‘It is time to work out an industry guideline as budget inns have been growing very rapidly all across the country. With national standards, everyone in the industry can improve customer service.’

The China Hotels Association now represents 8,000 to 9,000 hotels nationwide.

A recent national survey of the budget hotel industry by the Association found that occupancy rates at budget inns dropped to an average of 82.4% last year compared to 89% in 2005. Meanwhile, the average price for a budget room dropped 36% last year to RMB209 (US$27.34) a night.

This is a relatively young industry and teething problems are to be expected.

Shanghai-based Jin Jiang Inn — the undoubted leader in this area, the one probably the least in need of standards and the one illustrated here — did not open its first hotel in Shanghai until 1997. And the industry did not start its explosive expansion until about five years ago.

According to earlier media reports, there are probably more than 100 brands of budget hotel in China with leading domestic players such as Jin Jiang Inn, Home Inns and Motel 168, as well as overseas competitors like Super 8 and Holiday Inn Express.

Zhang Minghou said it is possible that budget hotels will be divided into three categories based on prices — RMB200 to 300 per night, RMB100 to 199 and below RMB100 yuan a night.

Last year, 125 million overseas travelers visited China, an increase of 3.9% from a year earlier. Meanwhile, 1.39 billion Chinese traveled within the country, a jump of 15% from 2005. And still the room prices and occupancy rates have dropped. Standards are plainly needed.
Source: Shanghai Daily

InterContinental Hotel Group want to expand its Holiday Inn Express brand to make further inroads into the emerging market for business travel in China at the less expensive end. Yes, yes, it was this group that was complaining that its brand name was one of the most stolen in China but perhaps it has a plan to deal with that.

Holiday Inn Express places itself between full-service four-star properties and branded budget hotels and will mainly go for domestic business travelers.

The company is planning to open 125 hotels by 2008.

Kieron Ritchard, vice-president (strategy) of the group’s China business, said, ‘The service provided by a four-star hotel could be compared to a reasonably flat and long curve as it does lots of things and focuses on one thing in particular, while budget hotels have a value curve that is flat but shorter because they don’t have a gym, full-service restaurants or room service.’ That seems a very complicated explanation of what is a very simple to understand situation but there may be levels of which we are not aware.

Holiday Inn Express seems to be both sides of the curve with luxury bathrooms, wireless and cable networks free of charge, and, a bit of a grabber this, a free pot of the hotel’s special brand, Senses Tea.
Source: English People.com.cn

The MICE market (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) has become increasingly important to the business of China’s hotels and the tourist destination of Sanya Bay on Hainan Island has been active in tapping into this market.

Several hotels and resorts on the island have joined up with the Sanya Tourism Development Administration to launch a new MICE brochure to show the island’s facilities and to compete with other destinations. The nine resorts are:

Hilton Sanya Resort & Spa
Crowne Plaza Sanya
HNA Resort Sanya
Holiday Inn Sanya Bay Resort
Horizon Resort & Spa
Resort Intime
Yalong Bay Mangrove Tree Resort
Sanya Marriott Resort & Spa
Sheraton Sanya Resort 
 

Dirk de Cuyper, General Manager of Hilton Sanya Resort & Spa, said, ‘It is the strategy of resorts in Sanya to assist event planners and companies to ensure their events deliver their objectives as well as provide a memorable tropical experience …  Sanya is a hot spot for meetings and events of all different shapes and sizes’.
Source: PR Hilton Sanya Resort & Spa