Current Home Inns China

Home Inns & Hotels Management is to launch a new hotel brand, Heyi, in a bid to make inroads into the medium- and high-end business hotel sector and lift up operating profits efficiently, Sun Jian, chief executive officer of the Chinese economy hotel chain operator, disclosed on October 26.

The first Heyi-branded hotel, located in Shanghai, will be in service in December 2008. Different from economy hotels, the new outlet will mainly serve medium- and high-end businessmen.
Source: Trading Markets

Shanghai skyscraper city

Two visionary hotel concepts, Zendai Hotel Yin, a luxury, boutique-style ‘city retreat’ and Zendai Art Hotel, a 5-star business hotel, will open in the ‘Himalayas Centre’ which is due to open in Pudong in spring 2010, in time for the Shanghai World Expo.

Shnaghai International Expo

The Zendai Group has invested over RMB 2.4 billion in the Himalayas Centre which is located opposite to Shanghai’s New International Expo Centre and just 15 minutes from the city’s main financial district in Pudong. Metro line no. 7 is accessed directly from the basement of the Himalayas Centre and the high speed Maglev train, for 7-minute transfers and from Pudong airport, is just 10 minutes away.

Designed by one of the world’s leading architects, Arata Isozaki who is renowned for his work on the Barcelona Olympics Stadium and the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art, the Himalayas Centre is being hailed by developers, the Zendai Group, as an ‘archisculptural icon for 21st century China’.

Venue map

The Himalayas Centre will incorporate the Daguan Theatre with multi-functional auditorium seating 1,600, the Himalayas Mall and Himalayas Creative Complex / Museum Zone, as well as the two luxury hotels.

The boutique-style Zendai Hotel Yin will occupy the top four floors of the dedicated hotel tower.

There will be 78 guestrooms, ranging in size from the 376 square meters presidential suite to 60 square meters luxury suites, which are accessed via elevators exclusively for use by boutique hotel guests.
Much more HERE.
Source: Travel Tips

Map of Heiziazi Island which will be half Chinese

Half of Heixiazi island, which was returned to China in the middle of October, could be developed as a tourist resort according to an an official from Fuyuan county, Heilongjiang province.

Yu Wenli, head of the Fuyuan tourism bureau, said the return marked the end of a 79-year dispute over the island between Russia and China, and offers new opportunities for Fuyuan, which borders the island.
‘I have received a lot of inquiries about developing the island as a tourist resort,’ Yu said.

Heiziazi Island

The Fuyuan trade and investment promotion department said more than 20 businesspeople from Guangzhou, Beijing, Dalian, Shenzhen and Hong Kong have shown interest in the tourism plan, and setting up import/export businesses.

Zhu Sijun, deputy director of the publicity department of Fuyuan, said: ‘In view of the island’s geographic location, a proposal to develop the area into a Northeast Asia free trade zone is also under consideration.’

Discussions on building a railway to connect the island with the mainland are already under way, and an airport is also envisaged.

Heixiazi Island is located at the confluence of the Heilongjiang and Wusuli rivers, and serves as a natural border between China and Russia. It was occupied by the former Soviet Union during a 1929 border skirmish.
Source: China Daily

Legendale Hotel

The Legendale Hotel, invested, designed and run by Macau investors, has held its grand opening ceremony, with Mr. Ho Hau Wah, Chief Executive of the Macau SAR, other Chinese leaders, and ambassadors of more than 100 countries.

The Legendale Hotel is invested and founded by The Macau Legend Development Ltd.

David Chow Kam Fai, founder and chairman of Legendale Hotel Beijing, said the Legendale Hotel was the result of support from the national and local governments of China, including Beijing, Macau and Beijing Dongcheng District.

The 5-star Legendale Hotel Beijing has 390 luxury rooms including 81 suites, 79 opulent serviced apartments and 126 private residential apartments. There are also 8 restaurants and bars of different styles. The hotel lobby features a 17-storey atrium.
Source: MarketWatch

Mainland tourists arrive in Taiwan

Representatives of the nation’s airlines and the travel industry yesterday expressed high hopes for an upcoming meeting hoping it will address urgent issues and make substantial changes to cross-strait charter flight services.

Travel Agent Association chairman Yao Ta-kuan  said yesterday that the number of charter flights could be increased to at least 200 per week.

The meeting could also help add five more mainland airports to the list of those eligible for charter flights, he said.

Yao said the mainlandonly allows residents from 13 provinces to visit Taiwan and only 33 travel agencies on the mainland are authorized to arrange tour groups. He said he hoped these numbers would be at least doubled following the meeting.

Tony Su, chairman of the Taipei Airlines Association, said both sides had agreed during the first meeting in June that airline companies could start setting up offices on either side of the strait. However, Taiwanese airlines still cannot operate offices on the mainland the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) has yet to stipulate guidelines that legalize such business operations in China.

Su said the safety of cross-strait charter flights was another critical issue.

While the two sides have reached a consensus to move from weekend-only charter flights to daily charter flights, Su said the number of Chinese tourists would also have to grow simultaneously.

He said, ‘There must be a real increase in the numbers of Chinese tourists and that increase cannot be just those who used to take transit flights via Hong Kong and Macau.’
Read more HERE.
Source: Taipei Times

From a tandoor oven

The next Marriott which will open in Beijing around January, will have a fine-dining Indian restaurant serving Lucknow and Awadh cuisine made by a team of expat chefs. Tarun Varma, Director of event management at the Beijing Marriott City Wall , said, ‘It will be the first luxury hotel in China with a fine-dining restaurant for Indian cuisine.’

Seems a big claim to make.

Indian menus in China are still basic and forced to innovate with limited ingredients, like samosa folded in shortcrust pastry.

True tandoori dish

At a recent Hyderabad-themed party at the India Tourism office in Beijing, the restaurant catering for the event had to send their Garhwali chef to a senior official’s house, where his wife demonstrated how to cook Hyderabadi biryani and mirch ka salan.

Tarun Varma,  said, ‘Getting approval for a tandoor takes time in China, because there are detailed rules about burning open coal. We don’t want to use an electric oven like some restaurants prefer to.’
Source: Trading Markets

Tourists wait to check in at Beijing Capital International Airport.

Industry insiders said although the current travel crisis will have some effect on tourism within China, it will not be very serious.

According to recent statistics from the National Tourism Administration, Chinese outbound visitors reached 34.4 million in the first nine months of this year, up 14.8% year-on-year. In September, about 3.7 million Chinese people traveled overseas, an increase of 9.04% year-on-year.

In addition, domestic tourism is flourishing, with more than 178 million Chinese traveling within the country during the National Day holiday week, up 22.1% from the same period last year.

Despite the financial crisis and worries about a global recession, many Chinese travel companies remain confident about their business prospects, saying that due to huge domestic demand and tremendous market potential, China’s tourism sector will be able to weather the storm.
Much more HERE.
Source: China Daily

Millbrook in New Zealand: amazing and empty

Spending by domestic travelers in New Zealand fell by $507 million or 6.4% to $7.39 billion in the year to June 2008, new research from the New Zealand Ministry of Tourism shows.

The biggest overseas loss came from China. Visitors from there dropped by a third, falling by 2,700 to 5,497 in September.

Ministry research manager Bruce Bassett said, ‘Weaker economic conditions and high fuel costs during the period are being reflected in a reduction in demand for travel, including domestic travel.’

The number of overnight trips fell by 5.5% from the previous year to 14.4 million trips, while the number of day trips dropped 15.5% to 25.9 million.

If the price of fuel stayed down in coming months, Bassett expected to see an increase in domestic activity, particularly in the number of day trips.

This research comes the same week that Statistics NZ unveiled a big drop in the number of international visitors last month.

It said tourist numbers fell 6.6 %, or 11,100 people, in September compared with the same month last year — the equivalent of 25 jumbo jets full of passengers.
Source: New Zealand Herald

Unsmiling gamblers. Gamblers do no smile - ever

Of all the victims of a downturn in Chinese tourism, Macao stands to lose the most.

About 58% of all inbound travelers come from mainland China, where gambling is outlawed. Although the number of mainland tourists to Macao increased by 10.6%  in August, it is a far cry from the 29.9% growth registered in July and the even faster rate of 36.6 % recorded in June.

The slowdown is already affecting casino revenue, which rose more than 50%  in the first six months of this year but was flat in the first half of last month, according to Standard & Poor’s.

Since Stanley Ho’s monopoly on the gaming market was ended in 2002, Macao, which has 30 casinos and has attracted heavy investments from Las Vegas casino operators, is now the world’s biggest gaming market.

Most analysts forecast that the total September figure, which will be released later this month, will fall. If it does, it will be the first monthly drop in casino revenue since November 2005.

The decline is being anticipated after Beijing announced a series of measures to tame explosive growth in the Macao gaming market this year. The Chinese government has in the past few months repeatedly tightened the frequency and ease with which mainland gamblers can travel to Macao.
For more click HERE.
Source: The Financial Times

Solar glass curtain used to create energy

Diangujinjiang International Hotel of Baoding in north China’s Hebei Province is a five-star hotel with solar power generators.

This is the first of its kind in China and has a total installed solar power capacity of 0.3 megawatts.

This is an excellent start but it is nowhere near enough.

A large residential or retail building may consume several megawatts in electric power and heating energy.

A hotel would be well in this class so it is highly unlikely that the hotel is providing all of its own power. But it is a start and it means that SOME but not all, of the burden is handled.

The productive capacity of electrical generators operated by utility companies is often measured in MW.

To give you an idea  modern high-powered diesel-electric railroad locomotives typically have a peak power output of 3 to 5 MW. Don’t expect solar driven railroads any time soon.
Source: English People’s Daily Online