We keep reporting in these pages new hotels being opened. Who will stay in them? The answer is that, according to a report issued by the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), the annual inbound tourist arrival in China will surpass 163 million in the next three years. (Note this is only an estimate issued by PATA although it is extremely likely to be achieved.)

The report says that China’s tourism industry recorded a staggering growth in the past two decades, and the industry is now worth more than $100 billion U.S. dollars a year and creates 90 million jobs nationwide.

Peter de Jong, PATA chief executive officer said, ‘While the overall statistics are undoubtedly impressive, maximizing tourism potential is not just about swelling numbers, but it is also about sustainability and even guaranteeing repeat traffic.’

Last year, 132 million overseas tourists visited the country so reaching the figure of 163 million is not too large a stretch to imagine.
Source: China View

The Millennium & Copthorne Hotels has opened the Copthorne Hotel Qingdao, rebranded from Hotel Equatorial Qingdao.
This is the first hotel of the Copthorne brand to join the growing global portfolio of Millennium & Copthorne Hotels in China.

Copthorne Hotel Qingdao is 60% owned by LKN Investment (a Singaporean firm) and and 40% owned by China Civil Aviation Hua Dong Administration Authority). It is NOT owned by Millennium & Copthorne Hotels which is managing it on a contract.

Qingdao is a beautiful seaside city in the the southeast part of Shandong Province and is also an important city for international trade.

The hotel will be catering for tourists and for MICE groups. The hotel is only 30 minutes drive to the airport and within walking distance to major commercial centers, provincial government offices and shopping malls.

Most of public parts of the hotel were renovated in early 2008 so it is more adapting the public parts of the hotel to the Millennium style than doing a total refit.

There are 455 guest rooms and 17 suites and these were completely renovated in early 2007 so the hotel is in pretty fair shape.

It has, but of course, high speed broadband Internet connections, a business center and a modern health club with an indoor swimming pool.
Source: 4Hoteliers

A survey of American travelers by AAA and GlobalInsight has some interesting findings.

China and India may see larger jumps in American visitors this summer than any other country. China may see a 13% increase, to 573,000 American visitors.

Travel to Canada and Mexico will be about the same this summer as last.
Travel to Italy should be up nearly 5%, to 1.6 million American travelers.
Travel to France should jump by nearly 7% to about 1.1 million American travelers.
Travel to Germany ought to increase by slightly more than 4%, to 724,000 American travelers.

Which goes to show that although much is made of the China travel boom the facts are it is still a long, long way behind many, more traditional tourist countries.
Source: Budget

Otis, probably the most famous elevator company in the world, has won a $23 million contract to provide high-speed elevators at China’s Guangzhou International Financial Center, a hotel and office building that will be among the tallest in the world.

Otis will install a mix of its ‘Skyway’ double-deck elevators with speeds up to 1,378 feet per minute, and its ‘Elevonic’ high-speed gearless elevators capable of up to 1,575 feet per minute

When completed for the 2010 Asia Games in Guangzhou, China, the tower will reach a height of 1,417 feet and be among the tallest buildings in the world. The 103-story building is designed for offices on lower floors with the luxury hotel, as yet unnamed, above the 70th floor for a luxury hotel.

Otis bills itself as the world’s largest manufacturer and maintainer of ‘people-moving products’ including elevators, escalators, and moving walkways.

Elisha Graves Otis, as seen in our splendid illustration, sold his first safety elevators in 1853. Otis’s invention increased public confidence in elevators, and therefore allowed for the mass construction of a new trend of building: the skyscraper.

The company pioneered the development of the safety elevator, invented by Otis, which used a special mechanism to lock the elevator car in place should the hoisting ropes fail.

Otis made skyscrapers possible by providing safe mechanical transport to upper floors. The company he founded became known as the Otis Elevator Company, the largest elevator company in the world.
Source: Hartford Business

If you work for a big American company and you have to travel you have very few choices. The company makes them for you. It has a deal with yet another company which negotiates lower travel and accommodation costs because of the bulk involved. The individual traveler simply does not have much say. Because the company saves serious amount of money.

At the moment China business has, generally, not got on to this area of cost saving.

Jean-Pierre Remy, president of Expedia Corporate Travel said fewer than one in five companies in China currently uses a travel management company, leaving room for explosive growth.

It is, in fact, a no-brainer.

According to American Express China’s business travel market is worth $10 billion, the world’s fourth-biggest. Online travel agency Expedia Inc’s corporate travel unit expects growth in China’s corporate travel services market to speed up substantially from its current pace of 20 to 30%.

Expedia Corporate Travel, a five-year-old business, is still small time compared to its massive retail parent. It had 1.3 billion bookings globally in 2007, compared with 20 billion bookings for Expedia Inc.

It is moving into China in a joint venture with eLong Inc. the country’s second-largest online travel firm in which Expedia owns a stake. Yes, there is competition already for this immense market but it is barely tapped and Expedia has a major growth opportunity.
Source: Reuters

After nearly four years in China and 48 signed hotels, Days Inn China is now planning to double its growth rate in 2008.

To achieve this goal, Days Inn China is adding a new leasing business to its existing management and franchise model, where leasing and converting existing properties will become a significant part of its growth strategy.

Days Inn China is now exploring partnership opportunities with real estate owners nationwide.

In the near future, Days Inn China’s leasing business will undoubtedly parallel the growth seen with its existing franchise and management divisions.

Harry Tan, CEO of Days Inn China, said, ‘People tend to believe that luxury hotels and budget hotels enjoy a better positioning than mid-range hotels. We, however, have a different viewpoint. The pricing of high-end hotels is getting increasingly prohibitive, which as a result makes some guests turn to more affordable alternatives. At the same time, more and more business travelers are beginning to seek out more comfortable accommodations with higher standards. We recognize that the majority of leisure travelers today have increasing levels of discretionary income and would prefer mid-range hotels over budget hotels.’

Days Inn’s parent company Wyndham Hotel Group is the largest hotel group in the world, with more than 6,400 hotels worldwide representing more than 535,000 rooms. Days Inn has over 160,000 rooms in more than 1,800 hotels on five continents.

Days Inn China has almost 12,000 rooms in 16 provinces covering 29 cities, including provincial capital cities, second and third tier cities.
Source: Xinhua PR Newswire

Hotel InterContinental group has launched an apprenticeship program to fast-track frontline staff into supervisor and manager roles.

About 100 workers will undertake an NVQ (National Vocation Qualification) in hotel management, with a guaranteed promotion on successful completion.

This has two great benefits.
First it buys loyalty to the company from bright staff ready for promotion.
Second it helps relieve the desperate shortage of qualified frontline staff.

Tracy Robbins, executive vice-president of global HR and shown in our illustration, said she was asking general managers to star-spot — a new phrase which may have it uses — among frontline staff.

She said, ‘Common sense and the right attitude are often all it takes to get noticed. Our focus is not just on bringing in new people, but on engaging and motivating existing staff.’ Indeed, it is a twofer.

She added that staff shortages in the hotel industry are particularly acute in provincial areas because there is a higher concentration of experienced workers and foreign nationals in large cities.

Intercontinental plans to more than double its Chinese workforce as 107 new hotels open in the country over the next three to five years.
Source: Personnel Today

A major hotelier in Australia gets in touch to explain that the prices charged during the weeks of the Olympic Games are more than justified. Because, pretty much no matter what they charge, the hotels at the high end of the market will lose money on the deal.

Points me to the Arthur Andersen survey which has the snappy heading:

Sydney Hotels Suffer Decreased Food & Beverage Revenue and
Displacement of Loyal Guests During Olympics But Double Average Room Rate

The problem is that hotels — in Australia and Beijing — make a substantial about of their profit from F&B food and beverage.

An Olympic Games guest has an early breakfast (probably included in the price of the room) and then disappears to the Games to return late at night with sleep the major attraction.

During the period all the MICE events (and the includes all weddings which are a nice little earner) are suspended — indeed, at the Beijing Games they are banned — so the typical convention visitor who dines and drinks and stays near and in the hotel is not on the list.

And, indeed, to be on the safe side there appears to be a buffer period each side of the Games when MICE business — meeting, incentives, conventions, exhibitions plus weddings — stops dead in its tracks just to be on the safe side.

Result? Adding it all up the big hotels lose money during the Games. They did in Australia in 2000. And the hotel executive giving th information is absolutely certain the same will happen in Beijing.
Source: Hotel On Line

Millennium and Copthorne Hotels are opening five new hotels in China during 2008. These will be in Beijing, Chengdu, Qingdao, Xiamen and Wuxi.

The 352-room Millennium Harbourview Hotel Xiamen has a sea view and most guest rooms, one is shown in our illustration, face Gulangyu Island, a favorite leisure destination.

The hotel is in the heart of Xiamen near the commercial city center with easy access to the airport, a convenience welcomed by the business traveler. It is a MICE hotel with all the trappings.

The Millennium Wuxi Hotel is at the heart of Yangtze River Delta Region on the southeast coast of China, close to Shanghai, Catering to a predominantly Japanese market, the new purpose-built Millennium Wuxi Hotel is situated in the Court of Eastern Peace, which is in the heart of Wuxi New Development District.

It is in the centre of 12,000 sq m Japanese Garden, with extensive room and room-leasing services.

In the hotel, besides the multi-function rooms, VIP rooms, all-day dining restaurants and Japanese restaurant, there is a Japanese Spa, an indoor swimming pool, an indoor golf driving range, a hot yoga studio, Chinese restaurant, two wine bars and an Executive Lounge.

The Grand Millennium Beijing opens in April 2008 in time for the Olympic and Paralympic Games. This is a premium five-star hotel with 521 rooms. Again this is a MICE hotel.

Other hotels scheduled to open in 2008 are the Millennium Hotel Chengdu and the Copthorne Hotel Qingdao.
Source: Easier Travel

The first Design Hotel in China will open in Beijing on April 18. The 55-room hotel, The Emperor, is near the former Imperial Palace of the Forbidden City in an old tree-lined avenue.

The building which holds The Emperor was the former premises of the Qinghua University Alumni and features a classical Chinese brick facade and roof. Beijing Dacheng Yongan Zhiye, developed the building into a hotel project with their international partners.

The design of the rooms seems to be unique. They are described as follows: all furnishings are connected to each other by an invisible line, appearing as if the wall flows into the bed, continuing into the sofa and finally to the desk. The prevailing colour in all rooms is white, highlighted with fiery orange, lime green, deep ocean blue as well as slate grey. You probably have to see it in reality to appreciate it to the full.

For business the main meeting room located on the rooftop for 20 persons can be used as a private event space. On both the first and second floors are private meeting spaces.
Source: Asia Travel Tips