Swissôtel Grand, Shanghai will open on March 30, 2008 which will probably be a soft opening which means the hotel has a little time to shake any minor problems out.

It is less than five minutes’ walk away form Nanjing West Road, the city’s busiest shopping, entertainment and commercial center which has Jiu Guang City Plaza, Plaza 66 and Citic Square. It is about 50 minutes from Pudong International Airport and 20 minutes from Hongqiao Airport, and is close to popular attractions such as the Jing’an Temple, Shanghai Grand Theatre and Shanghai Museum.

It has 467 and 15 suites. Smoking and non-smoking rooms as well as rooms for the disabled are available.

Located on 5th floor of the hotel is the Spa & Fitness, featuring four individual treatment rooms and two luxurious VIP treatment rooms. There is also a comprehensive fitness center and an indoor heated swimming pool along with a childrens’ wading pool which seems an excellent and thoughtful addition.

This is a MICE hotel in that the hotel has over 1,190 square meters of meeting and conference area including multi-purpose function rooms equipped with the latest technologies, suitable for meetings, VIP business functions, social events or weddings.

Swissôtel Hotels & Resorts is owned by Fairmont Raffles Hotels International which has over 80 hotels in 25 countries worldwide under the Raffles, Fairmont and Swissôtel brands.
Source: eTravelBlanckboard

Hotels use a lot of energy. In Beijing they used one fifth of the total power consumed by the service sector. Now Beijing’s hotels have been told to adopt new energy-conservation measures to make them more eco-friendly.

Hotel should maintain temperatures of no cooler than 26 C in summer and no warmer than 20 C in the winter. And all hotels with more than three stars that have been in business for two years or more should clean out their air-conditioning systems before May.

The cleaning idea is sensible and enforceable. The temperature control may be more difficult. Yet Beijing Vice-Mayor Ding Xiangyang said at a conference the moves are mandatory. Before they were suggestions. Now they are orders.

He said, ‘Enforcement officials will be sent around to make sure these measures have been implemented.’

Hotels have also been told to clean their air-conditioning and ventilation systems before the end of the year. Du Jiang, head of the Beijing tourism administration said, ‘This is to ensure the health of visitors and spectators during the 2008 Summer Olympics.’

Beijing’s consumption of power is increasing every year. Though hotels on average consumed less energy last year than in the year before, experts believe there is still room for further savings.

All hotels with BOCOG contracts were urged to meet State standards for ‘green hotels’ before the end of this year.

The standards require hotels to use water-saving equipment, install power-saving light bulbs and wash their linens less frequently. By the end of last year, only 192 hotels, including some non-rated hotels, had been approved as eco-friendly. As a percentage that is pretty poor. Beijing has about 700 starred hotels and is expected to have 800 by the time the 2008 Olympic Games is held.

Our illustration is of the splendid Raffles Hotel in Beijing. We are quite sure it does not waste electricity. It would not be in the tradition of the man after which it is named: Sir Stamford Raffles. Mark you, in his day electricity had not been invented.
Source: China Daily

With the 2008 Olympics looming, Beijing is one of the hottest development markets in Asia. But the rest of China is not far behind. Key demand drivers in China: rising prosperity of population, more ‘approved destination status’ locales, low-cost airlines, improving infrastructure, including major highway systems.

Upcoming Olympics in Beijing in 2008 and World Expo in Shanghai in 2009 mean an accelerated development pace.

Labor, ‘with no easy answers,’ is the biggest challenge going forward; training and retention will be top of mind for the foreseeable future as hotels compete among each other and other growing sectors.

Scott Woroch, senior vice president of development, Asia, for Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts, which has 12 announced Asian projects in its pipeline, explains that addressing those issues is easier in China. He said, ‘From airports to bridges — things that assist with movement of people — those issues in China are a bit easier because the government is involved.’

Tom Storey, executive vice president, development, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International. ‘In China the bigger issue is having the right partners — period. If you have the right partners who have done a lot of transactions with Chinese government, that helps get entitlements.’

Tom Storey says the company is focused on finding the right partners for the key gateway markets. Raffles just debuted in Beijing. Swissôtel will open in Shanghai in late 2007 and China’s Guangdong Province in 2008.

Also addressing the growing demand for mid-market product, Accor is targeting most of its expansion to the budget and mid-market. Michael Issenberg, managing director, Accor Asia Pacific, said, ‘70% of our business in China comes from the domestic market, and while the expansion of our luxury Sofitel brand will see the international component of our business increase (a new flagship Sofitel Wanda Beijing will open this year), domestic business to our economy and mid-tier Ibis, Mercure and Novotel brands will grow at an even faster rate.’

The majority of these hotels will be concentrated in regional centers and secondary cities that offer new business parks and transport hubs.
Source: Hotels

Raffles Hotels has revised an early projection — made just four months ago — of the number of properties that will come under its wing. Now Raffles believes it will have about 30 properties under its brand name by 2011. This according to Diana Ee-Tan, its managing director.

Mrs Ee-Tan said Raffles Hotels and Resorts has stepped up its pace of expansion since its acquisition by Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding and Los Angeles-based Colony Capital.

Now there is the Raffles Tianjin Hotel with more on the way. For the planned expansion one area of focus for the group will be secondary cities in China, which are seeing rapid economic growth.

Raffles will try to grow mainly through management contracts, Mrs Ee-Tan said. But the group remains open to taking equity stakes in projects if needed.

Naming could have been a tad difficult but Raffles, named after Sir Stamford Raffles, seen above, won through. Raffles Hotels & Resorts is now part of Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, which is a hotel company headquartered in Toronto. The company owns and manages 120 hotels in 25 countries under four brand names — Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Raffles Hotels & Resorts, Swissotel Hotels & Resorts and Delta Hotels — as well as vacation ownership properties managed by Fairmont Heritage Place.

Mrs Ee-Tan is quick to point out that what remains consistent is the Raffles brand name and style of service. Most Raffles properties remain small in size, usually comprising between 150 and 250 rooms.
Source: EHotelier

Tianjin, only about two hours’ drive from Beijing, will have a Raffles Tianjin Hotel next year. It will be in the Tianjin Centre’s West Tower, taking up the 32nd to 45th floors, including the rooftop where you’ll find the restaurant and bar with views across the city. The Raffles will be Tianjin’s first penthouse hotel.

A Radisson is also planned for Tianjin which is China’s third largest urban area and has a large international airport.
Source: Hotel Chatter

The point is made that China’s luxury hotel market is growing — in part due to increasing affluence in the country and, in part, to an influx of high-end corporate travellers. Raffles Hotels and Resorts recently opened its flagship property in China and is already planning for more such hotels.

Raffles Beijing Hotel was built in the 1900s at the crossroads of Chang An Avenue and the district of Wangfujing, Which means it is in the heart of the business and commercial districts and a few minutes from the Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square and the Silk Market. It is a 15-minute walk from Beijing railway station and less than five minutes from Wangfujing subway station. Pretty central.

It has 171 guest rooms and suites. Some of them are referred to as ‘the most expansive and decadent in Beijing’. Not sure about that word ‘decadent.’ Possibly something more refined is meant although arguing about a single word is a bit damn silly. The description generally sounds like ultimate luxury. Which is, I think, the intent. On the other hand, you could not possibly get away with using the term ‘decadent’ in reference to Sir Stamford Raffles after whom the hotel is named.

Raffles was born on the ship Ann off the coast of Jamaica. His father, Captain Benjamin Raffles, was involved in the slave trade in the Caribbean, and died suddenly when Raffles was fourteen. Our hero Stamford Raffles started working as a clerk in London for the British East India Company, the quasi-government trading company that shaped many of Britain’s overseas conquests.

In 1805 he was sent to what is now Penang in the country of Malaysia, then called Prince of Wales Island, starting a long association with southeast Asia.

In 1817 he was knighted by the prince regent. He came back to the island of Sumatra in 1818, and on 29 January 1819 he established a free-trade post at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula — a site that became Singapore. By the time he left the country in 1823, the city was on its way to becoming the largest port in the world.

The Raffles Hotel in Singapore was founded in 1887 by the amazing Armenian brothers Martin, Tigran, Aviet and Arshak Sarkies who transformed the hotel scene of Asia. Initially the hotel was a ten roomed bungalow but it grew and grew. In the nineteen seventies the hotel was a wreck run by a manager who was as mad as a cut snake. In 1987 the Singapore government quite rightly declared in a national monument and it was intelligently and sensitively restored.

So the Raffles in Beijing has a long and exotic history to live up to. The property in China is owned by government-linked Beijing Tourism Group, but managed by Raffles.

Michael Ong, Corporate Director, Business Development, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, said, ‘I think before Raffles was opened there was only a St Regis. So this is the second luxury hotel into the market. After this, a couple more will open. So right now I think we are competing directly with St Regis and we are doing well.’

The company says there are also plenty of investment opportunities outside the Chinese capital.

Thomas Storey, Executive Vice-President, Development, Fairmont Raffles Hotels International, said, ‘There are five or six key markets already in China that are already supporting luxury hotels and we think represent that opportunity in the future…. So we see those markets as key opportunities today. A market like Tianjin is more of an emerging market (and) probably will have luxury hotels within the next five to 10 years, but there are none existing today.

‘With the growth of the Chinese consumer and the affluence that’s being built in the region overall, we think both for inbound and outbound travelers, that there will be an increasing number of cities that probably support a luxury hotel going forwards.’

The one thing that is probably missing is a tiger under the billiard table in the billiard room. They had one in the Raffles in Singapore. A headmaster borrowed a rifle and shot it. Then went back to playing whist. Damn good. And damn right, too.
Source: Channel News Asia