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

JAL Hotels development of the Hotel Nikko Tianjin in Tianjin is nearing completion with an opening scheduled for the middle of this year.
The hotel will be part of an existing commercial complex, ‘The Exchange,’ on Tianjin’s main boulevard, Nanjing Avenue. Hotel Nikko Tianjin will be a five-star hotel with 373 guest rooms and luxury facilities such as restaurants, a bar, a banquet hall, an indoor pool, a spa & fitness room and a business center. The hotel will occupy the building’s first floor, sixth to 22nd floors, and three floors on the basement level.

The city has been selected to provide a venue for football for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Japan Airlines currently has two flights weekly to Tianjin from Central Japan International Airport, and the number of passengers is expected to keep growing,
Source: JAL Hotels

China is soon to have a hotel which out-flaunts other hotels. Opening late in 2006, according to the word on its site, the Hyatt Regency Jing Jin City is a stately pleasure dome decreed by Kubla Khan.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.
So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round:
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

This is a luxurious conference resort — think MICE — located in Baodi, near Beijing and Tiajin. This hotel is currently not yet bookable although you can go to its site and see a picture of the place which is right over the top and looks like a film set.

You do not believe me?

This is what the site says about the soon-to-be hotel:

The resort resembles an ancient, mythical Royal palace surrounded by a labyrinth of pathways, archways and waterways, with courtyards, lush gardens and natural geothermal hot springs creating a unique oasis in northern China that dominates the surrounding skyline.

And, on a more serious note, it lists what is available for guests:

830 well-appointed guestrooms and suites. All feature private balconies, an LCD television, a DVD player, an in-room safe, a work desk with high-speed broadband Internet connectivity and WiFi, a multi-line telephone with voice mail and IDD, and tea and coffee-making facilities.
Regency Club: Two separate wings of exclusive Regency Club accommodation provide an extra level of service, including a separate Regency Club outdoor swimming pool; deluxe in-room amenities; complimentary breakfast, all-day tea and coffee, and evening cocktails; a daily newspaper; and a dedicated Concierge. Regency Club rooms feature in-room hot tubs supplied with water directly from the nearby natural geothermal hot spring.

The hotel will be opened in two stages. Part this year and the Regency Club next.
Source: Hyatt Regency

Hilton has signed a multi-year agreement with Tianjin Automobile Industrial Group — a 100 percent state-owned-enterprise mainly owned by the Tianjin Municipal People’s Government — to manage an upscale, 360-room hotel in Tianjin. It will be called The Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Tianjin and should open in late 2007.

Tianjin Automobile will refurbish and redesign a 25-story office building to house the Doubletree by Hilton Hotel Tianjin. Plans call for 27,000 square feet of meeting and ballroom space and state-of-the-art business center facilities.

This will be the first Doubletree Hilton in China.

That is the dry news. Now the interesting bit.

Doubletree is, as far as is known, the only hotel group in the world that hands every guest a chocolate chip cookie at check-in. A warm chocolate chip cookie. A delicious chocolate chip cookie. It is not known whether this tradition will carry on in China but there seems no good reason why it should stop. Hilton acquired Doubletree in December 1999. It has changed much but, so far, has kept the chocolate cookie.
Source: Commercial Property News