Home Inn Nanjing

Chinese budget chain Home Inns & Hotels Management said third quarter net profit rose to $4.34 million with the gain supported by expansion.

The company gave no comparative data but based on figures from last year’s third quarter financial report, net profit for the third quarter of 2008 rose about 27%.

Home Inns added that its mature hotels continued to provide stable revenues.

It had opened 148 new hotels as of the end of September, with a target of 200 for 2008.

Revenue increased 98.0% to $77.7 million in the third
quarter, including revenue of $5.7 million from the
Top Star hotel chain which the company acquired
last November.

The company said revenue in the fourth quarter is expected to come in at between $78.8 million and $81.7 million.
Source: Forbes

Legendale Hotel

The Legendale Hotel, invested, designed and run by Macau investors, has held its grand opening ceremony, with Mr. Ho Hau Wah, Chief Executive of the Macau SAR, other Chinese leaders, and ambassadors of more than 100 countries.

The Legendale Hotel is invested and founded by The Macau Legend Development Ltd.

David Chow Kam Fai, founder and chairman of Legendale Hotel Beijing, said the Legendale Hotel was the result of support from the national and local governments of China, including Beijing, Macau and Beijing Dongcheng District.

The 5-star Legendale Hotel Beijing has 390 luxury rooms including 81 suites, 79 opulent serviced apartments and 126 private residential apartments. There are also 8 restaurants and bars of different styles. The hotel lobby features a 17-storey atrium.
Source: MarketWatch

Mainland tourists arrive in Taiwan

Representatives of the nation’s airlines and the travel industry yesterday expressed high hopes for an upcoming meeting hoping it will address urgent issues and make substantial changes to cross-strait charter flight services.

Travel Agent Association chairman Yao Ta-kuan  said yesterday that the number of charter flights could be increased to at least 200 per week.

The meeting could also help add five more mainland airports to the list of those eligible for charter flights, he said.

Yao said the mainlandonly allows residents from 13 provinces to visit Taiwan and only 33 travel agencies on the mainland are authorized to arrange tour groups. He said he hoped these numbers would be at least doubled following the meeting.

Tony Su, chairman of the Taipei Airlines Association, said both sides had agreed during the first meeting in June that airline companies could start setting up offices on either side of the strait. However, Taiwanese airlines still cannot operate offices on the mainland the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has yet to stipulate guidelines that legalize such business operations in China.

Su said the safety of cross-strait charter flights was another critical issue.

While the two sides have reached a consensus to move from weekend-only charter flights to daily charter flights, Su said the number of Chinese tourists would also have to grow simultaneously.

He said, ‘There must be a real increase in the numbers of Chinese tourists and that increase cannot be just those who used to take transit flights via Hong Kong and Macau.’
Read more HERE.
Source: Taipei Times

Shanghai Shimao International Square

Shimao Property Holdings has entered into an agreement with InterContinental for cooperation in the hotels business. (Note that Shimao constructus a far wider range of buildings than just hotels.

Shimao said it plans to open 6 hotels in four Chinese cities by 2013 and that Intercontinental will manage the properties under the partnership deal.

The hotels, in Beijing, Shanghai, Fuzhou and Shaoxing, will provide a total of 2,100 guest rooms.

This partnership sees the world’s largest hotel group by number of rooms and one of China’s leading real estate developers add a total of 2,100 guest rooms to the IHG list. (Note that Shimao already has other hotel deals operating.)

The hotels will carry the InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn Hotels & Resorts brands.
Source: Trading Markets and Focus on Travel News Gazette

Hakka round houses

China is waking up to the attraction is has within each state. Most unlikely but, honestly, Guangdong has abundant and unique tourism resources in each of its 21 cities.

They include natural attractions such as hot springs and mountains, and man-made travel spots, including the Hakka Round Houses and golf courses.

In the northern part of the capital city Guangzhou, Baiyun Mountain attracts a large number of international and local tourists very day.

Only 6 kilometers from Guangzhou’s center, the mountain’s summit, 380 meter Moxing Peak, can be reached by cable car.

The site also includes the newly built Bird Paradise, the largest aviary facility in China. A park at the summit is home to Baiyun Wanwang Pavilion.

The mountain is among the eight-most popular travel sites in Guangzhou.

Eastern Guangdong is home to most Hakka people in the nation. Their unique round houses have been built for several centuries, with those in Shizhai county of Shanwei city are the most famous.
Source: China.org.cn

Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum.

A popular tourist attraction in the city of Nanjing in Jiangsu province is fueling controversy for its entrance fees.

The management of the Sun Yat-sen Mausoleum, which contains the tomb of the father of the Republic of China revered by many Chinese at home and abroad, has reportedly been facing criticism for not opening its site for free to the public.

The scenic spot has an admission fee of RMB80 ($11.60 U.S. dollars), which is higher than the entrance fee for the Forbidden City in Beijing.

Ta Kung Pao, a Hong Kong newspaper quoted an official as saying the authorities will open the spot to the public for free next year.

In line with a regulation released earlier this year, museums, memorial halls and spots used for patriotic education began to open free of charge and received national allowances for rising operational costs.

Negotiations with the mausoleum’s management on the issue reportedly fell apart because the site required an allowance of RMB300 million every year, 10 times that proposed by the government.

Responding to the ongoing criticism, a publicity official of the mausoleum said yesterday that it is ‘impossible’ for the attraction to be free.
Source: Jongo News

7 Days Inn

The 7 Days Inn Group has formed a trans-regional alliance of domestic branded budget hotels in China.

The alliance is to provide a unified marketing platform for the medium and small scale budget hotel chain brands in China. This seems a most excellent idea.

Zheng Nanyan, chief executive officer of 7 Days Inn, said the alliance focuses on attracting domestic budget hotel chain brands with a certain brand influence to join them.

There is no charge for membership and no initial start-up capital, just a contribution for bonus points to participate in the alliance’s members development plan.

The alliance will offer support for its member hotels in the four areas of network system platform, member’s system, marketing management guidance, and hotel management guidance.

To-date, more than 300 hotels from several brands, including 18 7 Days Inn outlets, have joined the alliance. The group says that the number of outlets in the alliance is expected to reach over 600 by the end of this year.
Source: China.org.cn

China tourism

State media has reported that China’s tourism industry is expected to employ 100 million people by 2015. That means that, if it works out that way, one in every 14 Chinese will work in the sector.

The People’s Daily said the government will introduce various policies to help the industry reach the goal, which marks a steep increase from the 60 million currently employed in the industry.

Authorities will adopt measures to facilitate job hunting and subsidise training of new staff, according to a statement posted on the National Tourism Administration’s website.

They also plan to launch a campaign to expand tourism infrastructure in less developed areas.

Labour Minister Tian Chengping said earlier this year that the employment situation in China was ‘very severe,’ as 20 million new jobseekers emerge annually — a situation that will continue for a very long time.
Source: AFP

Tourists in China

The Beijing Foreign Enterprises Service (FESCO) said in a recent report that Beijing and Shanghai will each need 500,000 trained hotel staff by 2010 to serve the millions of overseas tourists expected to pour into the country for sightseeing and international conferences.

It also said that at least 10,000 sports management professionals and 7,000 trainers will also be needed this year to meet the Chinese public’s renewed interest in physical training and sports generally.

Li Yiguang, Assistant General Manager and Director of recruitment department with FESCO, said, ‘These rising demands are attributable to the Olympic Games, which have stimulated local interest in sports as well as making China an even more popular travel destination for the next two to three years.’

Professional consultant Hao Jian was quoted as saying in the Guangzhou Daily that the Olympic games’ influence on the host country’s economy, particularly its tourism and sports, usually ‘lasts for a decade’.
Source: China Daily

Koos Klein, Asia Pacific Hotelier of the Year is overseeing the largest development pipeline in Hilton International’s history in Asia, with the group poised to open 300 hotels in the next nine years

For the company this is a time of great change – Hilton was acquired by the Blackstone Group late last year – and the intent of the new investors is clear. Grow the company and sell it.

Koos Klein said, ‘It is clear that Blackstone did not buy Hilton to hold on to it forever. They are acting as our balance sheet which is good. It means more money for development. But private equity is opportunistic and the company is extremely active in gearing for growth.’

Five of the six top leaders at Hilton International have changed after the acquisition.

The accelerated rate of growth of Hilton in Asia Pacific can be put down to the fact that the company is introducing its Hilton Family of Brands across the market segments.

When Klein arrived in 1998 to run Hilton in the area, Asia represented only 5% of the company’s bottom line.

In China, the company will operate 26 hotels in China by 2011 and has entered into a deal to franchise 25 hotels under its mid-scale brand, Hilton Garden Inn to RREEF Alternative Investments (the global alternative investment management business of Deutsche Bank) and H & Q Asia Pacific.

Efforts to develop the flagship Hilton brand continue, while the company expects to bring more luxury properties into the pipeline under the Conrad and Waldorf Astoria Collection brands.
Source: 4Hoteliers