Kempinski Hotel Xi’an is set to open this May. It calls itself a ‘business hotel’ so it will have extensive MICE facilities including a 1,600 square meter ballroom. It is aiming to cater for the 450 plus trade fairs that are held in Xi’an every year and it is the offical venue for the bi-annual Euro-Asia Economic Forum.

It will have 355 guestrooms and for those who can’t resist a tune, a 3,000 square meter Kareoke entertainment area. The hotel is located right where the Chan and Ba Rivers cross each other in the Chanba Ecological District, northeast of Xi’an city.

The hotel just had a site inspection by four officials shown in the photo. From the left: hotel GM Yoland Perras, Wang Jun who is CEO of Chanba District Development, Bai Huqun from the Illness Controls Bureau, government official Wang Chengwen and Lily Cao, GM of Xi’an Neo China Chanba Euro Asia Hotel Development Co.
Source: Kempinski Hotel Xi’an

Three custom-made trains are being readied to run over the world’s highest railway.They will run between Beijing and Lhasa, and also between Beijing and Lijiang in Yunnan province.

Financing for the trains, known as Tangula luxury trains, totals $140 million

The Tangula rail cars are locally manufactured in China by BSP, a joint venture between the Canadian-based transport manufacturer Bombardier and its Chinese partners.

Each of the three trains will be equipped with 12 sleeper cars, two dining cars and a lounge car, and will accommodate up to 96 passengers in 48 spacious suites.
The suites will feature an en suite bathroom with shower, mini bar and in-room entertainment system with music, TV and satellite internet.
A butler, but of course, is on call throughout the journey, while a doctor is available during the ascent to Lhasa. Tickets are expected to be priced at about $5,000 per head compared with $50-$150 for the regular service.
For hospitality management and marketing of the trains, RailPartners has entered into an agreement with Kempinski, one of Europe’s oldest and most established five-star hotel groups.

Think superior-Orient Express and you have it about right.

The regular train service between Beijing and Lhasa that has been in operation since July 2006 takes almost 48 hours. But the luxury trains will take five days and four nights with stops along the way to visit tourist attractions. You cannot hurry perfection.
Source: Finance Asia.com

Luxury hotel management company, Kempinski, plans to manage the five star Kempinski Hotel Suzhou, at Suzhou — once thought of as the Venice of China and the illustration of the old town shows why. The hotel will be ready for operation by May 2008.

Jinji Lake Grand Hotel Management has invested RMB 1.2 billion into this project.

The hotel is located within a large estate which encompasses the 27-hole Jinji Lake International Golf Course, Jinji Lake Grand Hotel, a State Guest House of five villas and Dushu Lake.

The new 458 room hotel will include 80 suites, in six different styles. Kempinski Hotel Suzhou will be equipped with meeting facilities; wireless internet access; shopping outlets and a ballroom with a capacity of 1,500 persons giving it MICE capabilities.
Source: Hospitality Biz

New players are about to enter the luxury hotel market in China. You could argue that it is already very fully supplied in the major cities but this seems not to be a deterrant. And that is not the case in some of the second-tier markets of China.

The Jumeirah Group from the United Arab Emirates, which runs the world’s most luxurious hotel Burj Al Arab in Dubai (nothing exceeds like excess) is very keen on China.

The Dubai-based company, which aims to expand its global portfolio to 57 hotels by 2011, will open its first China hotel, memorably called the HanTang Jumeirah Shanghai in Xintiandi in July 2008. It will have 338-rooms. It is also considering opening in more Chinese cities as well as Hainan island.

Conrad Hotels & Resorts, a luxury brand under Hilton Hotels Corporation, which runs 18 hotels globally, has announced it will open its first mainland facility in Shanghai next year. It also said that it will open in Beijing although no specific timetable was given.

The 362-room Conrad Shanghai, again located in the city’s prime Xintiandi area, is under construction and due to receive guests between the middle and the end of next year.

Kempinski, Europe’s oldest luxury hotel firm which now runs 11 properties in the country — eight hotels and three resorts — said it plans to boost its portfolio to 21 by 2010 as it hopes to further boost its role as a major player in the Chinese market.

Rene S. Schmitt, Kempinski’s senior vice president for China said the German hospitality company, which entered the China market in 1992 by opening the Kempinski Hotel Beijing Lufthansa Center (seen above), will open hotels in Shanghai, Hohhot, Huizhou, Qingdao, Tianjin, Wuxi, Xi’an, Suzhou, Guiyang and Yinchuan within three to four years.

Kempinski also announced that it will launch the luxury Tangula Express trains in the second quarter of next year. The trains, to be managed by Kempinski and featuring spacious suites, gourmet cuisine, 24-hour butler service, spa and wellness treatment as well as an in-room entertainment system, will run from Beijing to Lhasa via Xi’an during the warm season and from Beijing to Dali, Guilin and Lijiang via Xi’an during the cold season.
Source: Shanghai Daily

You are going to the Olympics and you have not yet booked your hotel room? Lots of luck, Charlie. Yes, there is more than a year to go but some of the best hotels are totally booked out. As in totally.

A simple example: at the 5-star Kempinski Hotel (seen here) not far from the main Olympic site, a delegation of Germans has already booked all 526 rooms. The hotel’s revenue manager, Graham Barlow, said the hotel was ‘in the midst of trying to secure bookings’ and said potential guests were being put on a waiting list. This does not augur well if you have hopes of staying in a luxury hotel near the venue.

City tourism officials and Olympics organizers are confident Beijing’s 700-plus star-rated hotels can absorb the onslaught of half a million foreign and domestic visitors expected each day for 17 days beginning August 8, 2008. But it will be a bit of a tight squeeze and luxury may have to come off some potential visitor’s agenda.

Some of the best hotels are already fully booked, and 122 of the three-, four- and five-star hotels closest to the Olympic venues are at least 70% filled after Olympics officials, sponsors and media locked up 30,000 rooms.

Xiong Yumei, deputy director of the Beijing Tourism Administration came up with the perfect slogan in answer to a question: ‘No need to wait. Book it now, hurry up.’

Sadly free-wheeling capitalism is already pushing prices well over double normal rates. City officials say they will not restrict hotel profits, and standard rooms being cited by travel agents surpass $325 a night at some 3-star hotels to $500-$775 at luxury 5-star hotels. This is what happened at the Athens Olympic. It will be many, many years before some visitors will include Athens on their travel itinerary. The Internet was full of complaints referring to the hoteliers as rip-off merchants. It was hoped Beijing would not fall into the same trap. The evidence is that it has.

Even if money is not an object do not even think about trying to book a room in the closest hotels. More than 95% of their rooms were snapped up by the Beijing Olympics organizing committee.

This is what Olympics organizing committees do. Why else be on the committee?
Source: Reuters

Should this be under Logisitics or Hotels? Hotels because the prime mover is Kempinski Hotels. It has got together with Tangula International to manage the new Tangula luxury trains in China.

Think of Orient Express level trains taking you from Lhasa, Lijiang and Beijing in spring 2008. The purpose-built Tangula trains will take guests on two distinctive routes through China, crossing wild grasslands, desert plains and vast plateaus.

Departing from Beijing, the five-day/four night journey to Lhasa goes across the Tibetan plateau.
The Beijing to Lijiang route also takes five-days/four nights and explores the landscapes of Guangxi and Yunnan provinces.

On all routes there are daily off-train excursions. Each Tangula luxury train will accommodate up to 96 passengers in 48 suites. The suites each have an en-suite bathroom with shower, mini bar and in-room entertainment system with music, TV and satellite Internet. A butler is on call throughout the journey, while a doctor is available during the ascent to Lhasa.

Reto Wittwer, President and CEO of Kempinski, said ‘Tangula is a very exciting project that matches Kempinski’s pioneering spirit perfectly. We are delighted to manage the Tangula luxury trains. We can introduce our guests to a very new and exclusive travel experience in China, courtesy of Kempinski.’

So why the name Tangula?

The Tangula (sometimes spelled with two ‘g’s) Pass is in Tibet and rises to over 5,000 meters. It is here the Qinghai–Tibet Highway reaches its highest point of 5,231 meters. The Tangula Pass is home to the highest railway in the world, surpassing the altitude of the highest Peruvian railway by 255 meters at 5,068 meters.
Source: Hotel News Resource

There is a list of criteria a hotel must meet to be classified as a ‘green hotel’ in time for the Olympics. The environmental norms issued by China National Tourism Administration in early 2006 say that ‘green hotels’ need to set up eco-friendly managerial systems and facilities and adopt technologies that conserve water and reduce energy consumption and waste generation.

Deputy director of BOCOG’s Services Department Xiang Ping said, ‘BOCOG will invite experts to survey the hotels early next year. And hotels that fail to meet the standards will be told to do so.’ Failing that they will be dropped from the list.

Thirty-eight of these hotels are five-star facilities, 40 are four-star, and the rest three-star.

The Beijing Tourism Bureau put the ‘green seal’ on 52 of the 112 hotels, including Beijing Hotel and Kempinski Hotel, last year.

Kempinski public relations manager Li Shuang said, said, ‘We put in great efforts over the past year to raise our green standards and make our hotel more environment friendly.’ For instance, the hotel now uses recycled water to flush toilets.

Upgraded electrical tools and structural changes have helped these hotels reduce air and noise pollution and cut their energy consumption.

The listed hotels are expected to urge guests, through their services and suggestions, to lead a lifestyle that is environment friendly. These hotels will provide about 30,000 rooms to Olympic guests. The combined capacity of Beijing hotels is about 260,000 rooms. At least 1,500 mainland hotels had met the green criteria by the end 2006.
Source: China Daily

Kempinski has signed an agreement with Shanghai An Shun Real Estate to manage Kempinski Residences Hongqiao, its third property in China’s largest city. These should open later this year.

They are near to Hongqiao Airport, Shanghai’s domestic airport, and convenient to Pudong International Airport. Set in grounds covering 11,700 m2, there are a total of 212 luxurious residences ranging in size from one to three bedrooms, plus a very limited number of four and six bedroom residences, which will be available for long term rental.

The design is by Shanghai East Architecture Designing with interior design by DiLeonardo International.

Kempinski’s Senior Vice President China, René Schmitt, is delighted with this possibility to strengthen Kempinski’s presence in Shanghai, ‘With the city’s premier private residences at Forty One Hengshan Road, in the diplomatic district, the recent signature of Kempinski Hotel Shanghai in the Puxi district and now the Kempinski Residences Hongqiao, Kempinski is going from strength to strength in Shanghai and, indeed, in China.’
Source: Kempinski

Kempinski Resort and Spa Sanya is planned to open on January 15, 2007. It has all that you would expect from such a spa — stunning bay views, indulgent spa treatments and exquisite furnishings.

The hotel has an unusual touch - it will have a mico-brewery on the premises producing Paulaner beer which is a most excellent drop. And the restaurants are of the Kempinski standard which has always been world renowned.

The resort is on a soft white sandy beach located on the most southern tip of China and is set in grounds which span 51.6 hectares of tropical greenery and palm trees.

Sanya is the southernmost city in Hainan province, China and has an estimated population of 150,000. We are not talking crowded urban landscapes. Sanya is the second most populous city (a polite term as a small town would be appopriate) of the island. There is a Sanya Phoenix International Airport which is also named Fenghuang Airport.

Some background: Kempinski is arguably the oldest luxury hotel collection in the world having acquired its first property in 1897. Kempinski Hotels now owns and operates an international portfolio of well over fifty hotels and a further 28 hotels are either under final development or construction in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

The majority of Kempinski is owned by the Crown Property Bureau of Thailand and is also a Member of the Global Hotel Alliance with Rydges Hotels and Wyndham Hotels and Resorts.

Totally useless but fascinating piece of trivia — the city of Sanya hosted the Miss World contest in 2003, 2004 and 2005.