In the six provinces of Central China the tourism industry has shown a continuing momentum of rapid growth.

According to the information from the 4th Central China Travel Expo (CCTE) the average annual growth of tourism income and the total number of tourists received in the six provinces reached 20% which is higher than the GDP growth rate and the average growth level of China’s tourism industry.

In 2007, the six provinces, Shanxi (shown in our illustration), Jiangxi, Henan, Anhui, Hubei, Hunan received a total of 599 million domestic and foreign tourists.

This gave a reported total tourism income of RMB434.638 billion, up 28.88% on the previous year.

The number of foreign tourists reached 5.5955 million which was up 25.82% over the previous year.

RMB1 billion has been invested into the tour destinations, resorts, hotels and also an Expo venue construction in the six provinces.
Source: English People’s Daily Online

Sino Express Travel has agreed with Eversun to acquire a 200,000 square-meter of premium land for a resort and villa development in Hunan province. Total cost if all the regulatory approvals are given will be about US$15 million.

Sino’s management believes the location of the Hunan property, near Lake Dongting and within walking distance from a commercial district, is ideal for a first class resort and villa complex.

Development plans for the 200,000 square-meter land are divided into three phases: 1) villa development in phase one, 2) sports complex and recreation facilities in phase two, and 3) resort and hotel tower development in phase three.

Sino Express already has a comparable property in Southern Silver which is a beach resort located in Silver Beach, Yangjiang city, Hailing Island of Guangdong province. That resort is 50,900 square meters so the planned new resort will be about four times bigger. The illustration is of the interior of one of the rooms on Silver Beach.
Source: News Observer

Before the rail line connecting Qinghai province in the northwest of China to Lhasa — a 29 hour train journey — it was not an easy tourist destination. Indeed, it is still not. The train runs at the highest altitudes in the world and the thin air makes it a trip to be avoided by anyone with breathing problems. The building of the 1,142-kilometer stretch from Golmud in Qinghai Province to Lhasa took just five years.

Surrounded by the world’s highest ranges the Himalayas, the Karakoram range, the Kunlun Mountains and the Hengduan range, the Tibetan plateau is, apart from the rail line, isolated from the world. The isolation made it mysterious and the development of a singular and religion-based culture made it exotic.

Can Lhasa cope with the new tourism? As capital city of Tibet Autonomous Region, it has long been the center of politics, economy, culture and religion in Tibet. And the hotels reflect that.

Probably the most luxurious hotel in Lhasa is the appropriately named Lhasa hotel. This was a Holiday Inn and was renovated in 1999. Ther hotel has three five and six storey buildings with 450 rooms and suites. Some of the rooms have piped oxygen.

Most of the other hotels are three or four star. Interesting is the Tibet Hotel built in traditional Tibetan style, under the administration of Tibet Tourism Bureau. The hotel is constructed in granite and echoes the shape of the Potala Palace, one of the main tourist attractions of Lhasa.
Source:China Daily and research

Gloria International Hotels, a wholly-owned subsidiary of COFCO in Hong Kong, has recently finalized the management contract for its hotel in Hunan with Gold Leader International Development Ltd Hong Kong. 

Gloria International already has 16 properties across China and wants to achieve 25-30 management contracts in the next five years. It said its hotel in Xiangxi, Hunan province will “bring not only propsperity but also provide plenty of opportunities to Jishou and its surrounding area.”
Source: Press Release Gloria International Hotels

It gives an idea of the importance of the China as a destination that The Guardian in England has run a major story by Sally Howard on just one hotel. That is the Commune which started as a showcase for modern architecture on the Great Wall and, as the article puts it:

. . . has evolved into one of Asia’s most exciting, and affordable, design hotels.
Chinese culture was always writ large in its architecture. The Great Wall and the traditional courtyard home both speak of a world view in which everything within the wall is ‘family’ and everything without ‘not-family’.
Set in 2,000 walnut-tree acres 40 miles north of Beijing, with its northern perimeter traced by a breathtaking stretch of unreconstructed Great Wall, The Commune is the vanity project of rags-to-riches Beijinger Zhang Xin.
Her intention was to create a global showcase for Asian architecture by hand-picking 12 prominent architects from across the continent and offering them $1 million each to design a dream home. The results are startling.
Enter hoteliers Kempinski, which took over management of the site in August 2005, tarted up the main properties, then kicked back into the sloping green valley with a rash of new builds based on favourites among the original designs. The Commune by The Great Wall Kempinski (try that with a mouthful of Beijing duck) launched properly this month.
The Commune now comprises 42 villas, which for the most part are cleverly executed, their acreages of glass window framing views of the sinuous north Chinese landscape.
For the best of these, try the original Cantilever house, with its wraparound views of The Great Wall, or lather up like a pet Ming concubine with a breath-catching view of one of the world’s wonders from the bathtub of Shared house. Kempinski has thrown the net a little wider with decor, with international design pieces (Newson, Starck, Mouille) sharing space with modern twists on traditional Asian design, such as beds based on the traditional Chinese risen platform.

She likes it.
Source: The Guardian

A report in The Australian states international hotel chains are pushing into China’s second-tier cities in a bid to tap into potentially huge new markets.

According to a CBRE Research report on China’s hospitality industry, in 2000, five-star hotels in Shanghai and Beijing accounted for about 29 per cent of the 117 five-star hotels in China. However, by 2005, it dropped to about 25 per cent as hotel operators diversified into second and even third-tier Chinese cities.

As well as geographical diversification, international hotel chains were using lower-price brands to broaden their customer base in provincial China.

CBRE noted that the French hotel operator Accor launched its first Ibis Hotel, its three-star brand, in China’s Tianjin in 2003. Accor had reported occupancy rates of more than 90 per cent at the hotel throughout the year. The average occupancy was 74 per cent across its properties in China in 2005.

More recently, Accor announced plans to open 10 to 20 hotels in Sichuan between 2006 and 2012.

The InterContinental Group was plans to increase its network to 125 properties by 2008 to capitalize on the growing boom in local and foreign travel in China. The report also noted that 12 of the Shangri-La chain’s 21 hotels in China were already in second-tier cities. 14 the 31 new hotels Shangri-La Group will open globally between 2006 and 2010 will be located in China. Three are located in first-tier cities, namely Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Shanghai. The remaining properties are being developed in cities such as Chengdu, Xian and Wenzhou in China’s interior provinces.
Source: The Australian

Eight cities from Hunan Province have jointly set up an ‘Excellent Chinese Travel City’ Alliance to help build a barrier-free tourism region and, at the same time, make the trans-regional tourism resources work better. It seems one of the better ideas to come from the travel industry for a while.

The eight cities are Changsha, Zhangjiajie, Yueyang, Changde, Chenzhou, Shaoshan, Zixing and Liuyang. All of them are excellent tourist destinations in their own right with good hotel accommodation. This alliance is part of the Hunan Travel Festival 2006.

In the area are three five star hotels, two four star, seven three star and three budget. Seven of them already have web sites of their own.

The eight cities will create a joint conference system and work together on the travel development in the area. They will work closely together in travel industry management, market supervision and service quality supervision in hotels and tourist attractions.

A representative from Hunan Provincial Bureau said the travel industry has achieved an annual growth average of 20 percent over the past ten years.
Source: China Hospitality News