With the Olympic Games scheduled to hit Beijing next year, major hotel companies have scrambled to get new properties in China open in time.

Hilton Hotels operates six hotels in China (the one in Beijing is shown here), but will more than double that in the next few years. In late August it announced an agreement to manage a new Hilton in the Wangfujing district of Beijing, set to open next year, and also has scheduled to open in 2008 a Doubletree in Beijing, a Conrad in Shanghai and a Doubletree in Kunshan, as well as a resort and spa in Chongqing. Three other Hiltons are set to open in China by 2011. In June, a joint venture of one of Deutsche Bank’s investment arms and private equity firm H&Q Asia Pacific agreed to create and manage more than 25 hotels in mainland China under Hilton’s mid-price Hilton Garden Inn brand.
InterContinental Hotels now has 67 hotels open. IHG plans to nearly double that by next year, and future growth is particularly focused on Crowne Plaza.
Marriott International now has 27 properties in China, according to company spokesman John Wolf, and by 2010 will have 15 more: six under the Marriott brand, three under the Renaissance brand, two under the JW Marriott brand and four under Marriott’s mid-price Courtyard brand. In addition, the company will open six of its luxury Ritz-Carlton properties in China by 2010.
Hyatt Hotels & Resorts has announced plans to open in China 15 new properties — three Park Hyatt hotels, three Grand Hyatt hotels and nine Hyatt Regency hotels. China already has more Hyatt properties than any other country outside of North America.
Wyndham Hotel Group has announced an Asia-focused investment management firm is investing $50 million in the master franchisor of the Super 8 brand in China, Tian Rui Hotel Corp. The franchisor already has opened 49 Super 8 properties in China and has agreements in place to develop 67 more.

Even with all those growth plans in place, however, travel managers said the region would continue to be a challenge as travel to the region increases. Travel managers often have to look outside of hotel offerings when planning Asia/Pacific travel.
Source: Business Travel News Online

China’s rapid expansion as an economic powerhouse, coupled with a growing and affluent workforce, is driving a new wave of investment into the Chinese hotels and leisure sector.

The figures are remarkable:

InterContinental Hotels Group (IHT) is well on track to open 125 outlets in China by the end of 2008.
Hilton Hotels has teamed with Rreef, the property arm of Deutsche Bank and private equity firm H&Q Asia Pacific, to develop 25 hotels at a cost of £272 million.
French hotels group Accor plans to open 80 hotels in the country over the next two years.
Starwood, the operator of the Sheraton and Westin chains is looking to open at least 12 new hotels in Shanghai alone this year.

IHG’s chief executive Andrew Cosslett said, ‘China has unmatched market potential. IHG has the largest pipeline of hotels in the industry and we are on track to meet our objective of between 50,000 and 60,000 new net room additions by the end of 2008. This is equivalent to opening one new hotel a day.’

Apart from the flagship InterContinental Hotel brand, the group also operates the Holiday Inn, Express by Holiday Inn and Crowne Plaza hotel chains.

China is currently IHG’s third largest market with 22,665 rooms and 67 hotels. Its current pipeline envisages an additional 84 hotels and an extra 29,771 rooms.

So all those rooms have to be filled. IHG, like other hotel groups, is banking on a sharp increase in overseas visitors to China and more internal travel as the country opens up.

According to the World Travel & Tourism Council, the number of inbound tourists is expected to climb from 50 million in 2006 to between 150-180 million by 2020. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of China the number of domestic trips is expected to reach three billion by 2020.

China’s internet penetration is now second only to the US, with 137 million users — 10% of all hotel rooms are booked through the internet — while China will spend $17.2 billion on improving its airport infrastructure network between 2006 and 2010.

Road spending is also soaring with the number of highway kilometers set to double to 85,000 by 2020.
Source: Birmingham Post

Shares of InterContinental Hotels rose after the hotel operator detailed its expansion plans for China.

InterContinental has close to 30,000 rooms planned for China more than doubling its size.
China is the fastest growing hotel market in the world, with 177 cities each housing a population of more than 1 million people.

Of the 360,000 new hotel rooms expected in China by 2010, approximately 60% are expected to be in the lower-end of the market. This is a plus for InterContinental as the company’s strength lies with its Holiday Inn, Holiday Inn Express and Crowne Plaza brands.
Source: Forbes

HOTELS Magazine has ranked the world’s largest 300 hotel brands of 2007 in the ‘Giants 300′ list.

No.1 - InterContinental Hotels Group (556,246 hotel rooms)
No.2 - Wyndham Hotel Group (543,234 rooms)
No.3 - Marriott International (513,832 rooms)

China’s Jinling Hotels & Resorts ranked No. 73 with 43 hotels and 10,318 rooms (according to figures from 2006).

HOTELS is the official publication of the International Hotel & Restaurant Association and covers the hospitality industry in 170 countries.

Source: PR Jinling Hotels

Shangri-La Asia, the hotel arm of Malaysia’s Kuok Group, plans to raise at least $662 million via a rights issue to pay back debt and fund expansion plans in China’s booming world of hotels.

Shangri-La, Asia’s largest listed hotel chain by market value and controlled by billionaire Robert Kuok, runs 19 hotels across China and intends to double that number by 2010.

It said it would issue between 287.2 million to 290.1 million rights shares. Shareholders will get one rights share for every nine shares held. Trading in shares of the hotel operator had been suspended since June 29, pending details of the issue.

Last year, Shangri-La teamed up with Kerry Properties and Allgreen Properties to develop a site in China’s northern city of Tianjin into commercial, office and residential property.

The move by the hotel chain — named after the mythical utopia made famous by British author James Hilton — is part of a general heating up in this area which was hardly luke-warm to start with.

Some indicators:

U.S. private equity firm Blackstone Group will buy Hilton Hotels for about $26 billion in cash — the richest in a series of recent private equity offers for hoteliers. And, before you ask, yes, Paris Hilton gets a slab of that. Possibly to spend on mental and physical recovery treatments after her short spell in the slammer.
Accor, Europe’s largest hotelier, expects to double the revenue it takes from Asia in three or four years by following its plan to expand across China. The firm hopes to have as many as 160 hotels in operation or under development across the country by 2010, up 55% from the current 103.
InterContinental intends that half of the 50,000 to 60,000 rooms it plans to build globally by 2008 will be in China — in time to benefit from an anticipated tourism boom during the Olympic Games.

Source: Reuters

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

Intercontinental Hotels will open the Crowne Plaza Sun Palace Beijing in early 2008. The hotel will be located in the city centre, close to the Beijing International Exhibition Centre.

This is the fourth Crowne Plaza hotel in Beijing. Sun Palace will have 540 rooms, seven restaurants and bars, and over 3,400 square meters of meeting space which takes it into the MICE category. (Note that our illustration shows the swimming pool in the other Crowne Plaza but rest assured the plans for this hotel call for the same level of luxury.)

IHG currently operates 65 hotels in China, with an additional 60 in the development pipeline.
Source: TTG

InterContinental Hotels Group has announced the signing of the Crowne Plaza Sun Palace Beijing, scheduled to open in early 2008. Which bring us to a portfolio of 125 hotels – 65 in operation and an additional 60 in the development pipeline.

A. Patrick Imbardelli, chief executive of IHG Asia Pacific, said: ‘China is set to become the world’s number one tourism market in the next 10-15 years. With 65 hotels in operation and a plan to have 125 hotels open by the end of 2008, we already have a good profitable business model.’

Crowne Plaza Sun Palace Beijing is being developed by Yunnan Metropolitan Construction Investment and will be managed by IHG. The 540-room newly-built hotel will be located in the city centre, close to the Beijing International Exhibition Centre.

The hotel, IHG’s fourth Crowne Plaza hotel in Beijing, will have over 3,400 square meters of meeting space which makes it a MICE hotel. The illustration comes from the other Crowne Plaza in Beijing but neatly gives the idea of the level of luxury.
Source: Hospitality.net

The idea is simple. Give most of your business to a group and it will reward you with discounts and preferential treatment. InterContinental Hotels now plans to issue loyalty cards for consumers in China. But this is not just a straighforward loyalty card.

The IHG’s Priority Club Rewards is a co-branded Visa credit card which will be issued by Shanghai Pudong Development Bank’s credit card center in partnership with Citibank.

The theory is still simple. The credit card will allow users to earn points for everyday spending and double points on spending in IHG hotels worldwide. The points can be redeemed at hotels, airlines.

What is never quite clear is whether it is worth the bother.

For the frequent traveler and entertainer a case can be made. But it is quite possible to end up with a range of loyalty cards and the return is often not quite worth the bother for it stops you shopping around for the best bargain.

Many savvy travelers have now stopped using loyalty cards altogether and just buy on price. It will be interesting to see how successful this new joint IHG/Visa card will be. (The writer may be a tad biased. He still has a loyalty card from Ansett Airlines with stacks of points but no aircraft to fly on. And he has a lifetime membership of the Pan Am Clipper Club which cost serious money and is now not worth the plastic it was printed on.)
Source: Forbes

IHG (InterContinental Hotels Group) has been named top international hotel company in the China Top 10 study, the first China-wide travel and tourism ranking based on sales performance. Conducted by TTG Asia Media and Euromonitor International the results were announced at the Incentive Travel & Conventions Meetings China conference held in Shanghai.

IHG was the number one international hotel company within the Top 10 Hotel Chains category, which ranked the performance of local and international hotel groups by sales revenue. Other travel and tourism categories covered by the study include airlines, car rental companies, travel retailers, tourist attractions and tourist destinations.

A. Patrick Imbardelli, chief executive, IHG Asia Pacific, said: ‘The China Top 10 study ranks companies by sales performance. Being at the top of the hotel category reinforces IHG’s leadership position in the China hotel industry and our ongoing commitment towards driving excellent returns for our hotel owners.’

The world’s largest hotel group by number of rooms, IHG has a portfolio of more than 125 hotels in Greater China — 67 in operation and more than 60 under development.
Source: EHotelier