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

German based Maritim Hotels, the international group which specializes in MICE with the motto: ‘conference and accommodation under one roof’ will have a soft opening of its first hotel in Beijing in summer 2008.

Maritim Hotel U-Town Beijing is located near east second ring road, next to Chaoyangmenwai Dajie, in Beijing’s commercial district, and just a 30-minutes drive away from the airport.

The hotel has 362 guest rooms and suites, including three floors of the Executive Club Rooms, poolside café and snack bar. Food and beverage include a German Restaurant — lederhosen an optional extra — and an all-day international dining restaurant.

Facilities for the meetings and events market include a ballroom/banquet hall for up to 1,000 guests plus a modern Business Center.

The new hotel is the focal point of a shopping complex and luxury apartments. Scheduled to open in July, the 20 storey residence will provide over 280 rooms.

Our illustration of the Maritim Hotel in Cologne gives you a rough idea what to expect in the way of standards.
Source: China NewsWire

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

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 Pullman Sanya Yalong Bay hotel opened on February 3, 2008. It faces the South China Sea. The hotel opened on February 3 and has 77 rooms and 115 villas (all with private swimming pools) and 9 adaptable meeting rooms. The hotel can host more than 800 people on the occasion of congresses or seminars, in particular with its Pacific Grand Ballroom, which can accommodate up to 350 people. Which makes it, beyond doubt, a MICE hotel.

Pullman is a new Novotel brand and the aim is that by 2009, the Pullman chain will offer 59 hotels (15,600 rooms) in 23 countries covering Europe, Asia-Pacific, the Middle East and South America. ooking forward, Pullman plans to build a global network of 300 hotels by 2015, with new hotels being added at the rate of 25 per year.

CEO Gilles Pélisson said, ‘Pullman will be one of fastest-growing brands of the Accor Group, especially in the Asia- Pacific region. The brand will expand rapidly this year, particularly in China. In 2009, we plan to open 18 hotels in the Asia-Pacific region, with the ultimate aim of around 100 Pullman hotels here.’

Novotel sees Pullman as a perfect fit with the Group’s overall portfolio, because its market positioning is complementary to the other non-standard brands of Sofitel, Mercure and All Seasons.
Source: eBlackboard

Pan Pacific Hotels and Resorts will have a new hotel in Tianjin, China’s third largest city.

Scheduled to open in 2010 the 342-room hotel will definitely be a MICE hotel catering to Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions. To deal with this it will meeting room facilities comprising two ballrooms and 15 function rooms covering a total meeting space of 2,378 square meters.

Plus all the usual jollities such as an executive lounge, a specialty restaurant, an all day dining lobby lounge, a fully equipped gym, and a swimming pool with river view. The 24-storey Pan Pacific Tianjin will form part of a mixed-development with residential apartments, offices and shops acquired by a joint venture company Tianjin UOL Xiwang Real Estate Development.

The hotel will be in the northwest of downtown in the Hong Qiao District along Zhang Zhi Zong Lu with a panoramic view of the Hai He River.
Source: Asia Travel Tips

It’s award time again. Starwood Hotels & Resorts was voted ‘Best International Hotel Group’ at the TravelWeeklyChina Industry Awards 2007 held in December. Two of its China properties were particularly recognized:

Sheraton Sanya Resort — ‘Best MICE facility and Service Hotel’
The Westin Beijing Financial Street — ‘Best Business Hotel’ and ‘Hotel Chief of the Year’ (awarded to GM Charlie Dang)

Qian Jin, Senior VP of Operations for China & Taiwan at Starwood, said, ‘It has been a fruitful year in which Starwood has successfully opened nine hotels and signed over 20 new hotel deals’.

In China alone, the group has 40 hotels and another 40 currently in construction. New properties include the first hotel under the aloft brand in China, slated to open in mid-2008, and a W Hotel to open in Hong Kong later this year.
Source: PR Starwood Hotels & Resorts and TravelWeeklyChina

According to the official Xinhua news agency China is to create a tourist resort in a giant cave used by the former Nationalist government as a secret aircraft factory during World War Two.

The Haikong cave, in mountains near the southwestern city and wartime capital of Chongqing, will cost about RM500 million ($68 million) to develop.

The report said that the cave is ‘an ideal place for conferences and leisure travel.’

‘The enshrouded cave is 50 meters (164 ft) high and as spacious as a giant conference hall. The tourist bureau said that the manufacturing plant could be developed into a loft art workshop.’

There is no suggestion that tourists will be entertained by recordings of anti-aircraft fire or sirens. All will be peaceful and serene. And, no, the picture is not where the cave stands. But it is Chongqing and gives you and idea of the rustic appeal of parts of the city.
Source: Reuters

Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts has opened a new hotel — the Shangri-La Hotel, Chengdu the group’s first hotel in Southwest China.

The hotel is a 25-minute drive from Chengdu International Airport and a 15-minute walk to the Chunxi Road Pedestrian Precinct shopping area.

It is on the historic site of the Swell Fun, the oldest wine lane in the world according to Guinness World Records.

The hotel overlooks the Jinjiang River and is next to Hejiang Pavilion — built during the Tang Dynasty and now considered a lucky site for local residents.

The 593-room hotel also has 26 serviced apartments.

CHI, The Spa at Shangri-La — Shangri-La’s signature spa brand — offers treatments and therapies based on Chinese and Himalayan well-being rituals and traditions. With 11 treatment rooms set in an area of approximately 900 square metres, the Shangri-La Hotel, Chengdu features one of the largest spas among the city’s five-star hotels.

In addition, the hotel’s health club facilities include a gym, indoor swimming pool, outdoor tennis

This is a MICE hotel with a floor space of 2,100 square meters and a nine-meter-high ceiling. Plus a selection of 16 additional function rooms and an auditorium.
Source: Asia Travel Tips

In plenty of time for Expo 2010 — which will be a lot bigger than you can imagine with more than 50 million people attending — Nikko Hotels International has a five-star luxury hotel for Shanghai, scheduled to open in March 2009.

Hotel Nikko Shanghai will be in Manpo International Plaza, a real estate complex now being built that will have two luxury condominium buildings and a luxury office building. The complex is at the corner of Shanghai Puxi area’s main road, Yan An West Road and Zhen Ning Road.

It will have 388 guest rooms in a 25-story building. It will be a MICE hotel with all the usual goodies including a pool, fitness center and spa.
Shanghai Yuchang Real Estate Development, the owner of the hotel, is a leading real estate developer in Shanghai and is also handling the development of Manpo International Plaza.

Nikko Hotels International is an international luxury hotel group operated by JAL Hotels, a subsidiary of Japan Airlines. JAL Hotels has 64 hotels with 20,703 rooms worldwide, in Europe, the Middle East, the Americas and throughout Japan and the Asia/Pacific region and they are pretty much focussed on making the business traveler comfortable.

In China there is already the 373-room Hotel Nikko Tianjin, seen in our illustration, while the 500-room Hotel Nikko Wuxi in due in 2009.