Kempinski has opened the Kempinski Hotel Suzhou. Is set in a large estate which has the 27-hole Jinji Lake International Golf Course and a state guesthouse of five villas.

The hotel is surrounded by the scenery of Dushu and Jinji Lake. It is located 150 km from Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport and 90 km from Hongqiao Airport.

Hirsch Bedner Associates was commissioned for the interior design of the hotel.

The hotel has 381 rooms and 77 suites on 21 storeys, most of them overlooking either the lakes or the golf course. Wireless LAN is available everywhere.

This is a MICE hotel in that the meetings and banqueting facilities include one of the largest grand ballrooms in Suzhou covering 1,850 m2 and catering for up to 1,600 guests.

There are also eight meeting rooms starting from 100 m2 in size, and a state-of-the-art business centre.

There is, of course, a health center and an indoor swimming pool. Unusually — perhaps uniquely — it has indoor tennis and squash courts. The extensive spa facilities set to open towards the end of 2008 will include jacuzzi, sauna and steam rooms.
Source: Asia Travel Tips

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

The World Bank has just held a two-day conference entitled ‘Commission on Growth and Development’ at Sheraton Suzhou Hotel & Towers. The conference ended yesterday and attendees included Senior Minister of Singapore, Goh Chok Tong, pictured here (center) with Neil McDonald, GM of Sheraton Suzhou (right) and Ngiam Kai Soon, Deputy GM of the hotel (left).

Sheraton Suzhou has over 1,000 square meters of meeting space including a Chinese style 486-square-meter ballroom, two conference rooms and six boardrooms. The hotel is designed in traditional Chinese architecture and includes the famous Suzhou-style gardens.
Source: PR Sheraton Suzhou Hotel & Towers

To give an idea of the size of the interest in travel, there has recently been a three-day 2007 Domestic Travel Fair in Suzhou. The exhibition area covered 35,000 square meters, with 1,935 exhibition stands. 1,788 enterprises on display. Visitors were fairly evenly split between professionals and members of the public and, in all, there were some 80,000 visitors.

That is a major commercial success.

The National Bureau of Tourism is promoting rural tourism which is a good thing as the cities approach capacity. This idea, perhaps, started in Suzhou. Two years ago, Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Tourism began to regulate the rural tourism market. As you can see from the illustration, used much larger than normal, its tourism industry starts from a pretty solid basis of scenic beauty.

According to Shen Wenjuan, President of Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Tourism, the idea is ‘adjusting measures to local conditions,’ organically combining tourism with agriculture and working towards marketable concepts such as ‘one area with one character,’ ‘one town with one product,’ ‘one village with one landscape’ and ‘one household with one business.’

All of which can be taken too far and result in a strait-jacketed approach to tourism that rarely works. However, it does give a framework on which to build.

Suzhou Municipal Bureau of Tourism set aside a fund of RMB1.8 million for provincial and municipal tourism project construction. Some of the villages have been major successes.

Tangli Village completed the overall planning of Piaomiao scenic spots and built two agricultural family restaurants and a village inn.
Huqiao Village designed an ‘Independent Agricultural Development Park’ and an ‘Agricultural Tourism & Fishing Area,’ for which they have been partially funded.

It probably is not there yet. Much needs to be done. But this approach to rural tourism seems, on the face of it, a natural and intelligent way of extending China’s tourism.
Source: China Economic Net

The Shangri-La Hotel, Suzhou has now had it grand opening. It is the first international deluxe hotel in Suzhou’s National New and Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone. The hotel, which is especially suited for MICE as in Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, Exhibitions, provides 390 spacious rooms and suites.

There are 100 rooms in the Horizon Club plus a Horizon Club Lounge on the 48th floor with sweeping views of the city. And six restaurants offering a range of Asian cuisines and a Club Red Bar with upbeat music.

This is very much a MICE hotel with meeting and banquet facilities including a 1,310 square meter pillarless Grand Ballroom with a ceiling height of eight meters. This can hold up to 1,200 guests for cocktail receptions or 800 for dinner banquets. There is also the 478 square-meter Metropolitan Ballroom, an auditorium and five function rooms.
Source: Asia Travel Tips

Suzhou, a historic garden city, is less than an hour away from Shanghai’s city center and is thus an ideal place for a quiet weekend. Bernard Lo is the general manager of the newly-opened Holiday Inn Youlian Suzhou. He said, ‘The city is a great choice for people looking to get away, those who are not keen to leave the country during the national holiday weeks.’

The hotel has 220 rooms in four storeys and is property is next to the Panmen Scenery Area. The hotel has a Cantonese restaurant, an all-day diner and a lobby lounge for coffee or cocktails.

Bernard Lo has spent more than 35 years in the hospitality business and has great belief in the future of hotels in China. He said the Intercontinental Group, the largest hotel management corporation in the world with more than 3,600 properties, was preparing to open its 150th hotel on China’s mainland in 2008. Bernard Lo is quite certain it will be a success. He thinks there is still plenty of room for expansion.
Source: China Daily