Warning: This picture of the Grand Hyatt Shanghai might give you vertigo. Whoa....
Shanghai is so hot right now. In every shop from the Bund to People's Park you are assaulted with pieces of new cultural brands: stuffed animals for the Beijing Olympics, World Expo 2010 cell phone straps, and etched crystal replicas of their tallest skyscraper, the World Financial Center.
Like Budapest, Shanghai is divided by its river into two sides with very different agendas: Pudong for international business and ambitious development, and Puxi for old school flavor and street life in and amongst vestiges of the city's opium-fueled past.
On a recent visit to Shanghai we made sure to scope out the top two hotels set to house the upcoming waves of deep-pocketed tourists, and of course it's all about luxury.
According to the designers of the newly-opened Grand Hyatt Guangzhou, the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou is the China's equivalent to Los Angeles: a city that's "reaching forward, but one that's still rooted in its cultural legacy." To that end, the new Hyatt does sound like a mix of modern touches and Chinese traditions, although we're really not sure about the Chinese LA idea.
The Grand Hyatt Guangzhou is the fourth Grand Hyatt in China--there are, you won't be surprised to hear, plenty more on the way. This one has 375 rooms and is actually a wing of a larger twin-tower building. You have to start in the sky lobby on the 22nd floor, which isn't such a bad thing because you're guaranteed then to have the chance to see the views over downtown Guangzhou and the Pearl River.
The rooms sound like a fairly standard kind of luxury, but the bathroom island is intriguing, including a rain shower and a free-standing soaking tub. The technology at work includes iPod docking stations and high speed broadband.
To celebrate its opening, Grand Hyatt Guangzhou has an Awaken package for weekends and holidays which includes late checkout and free breakfast. The cost to Awaken yourself starts from RMB1,138 (plus 15% tax) - around US$185. Cheaper than a Hyatt deal in the real Los Angeles.
A new addition to the Small Luxury Hotels of the World stable has a name which hopefully turns out to reflect the resort and not be ironic: it's called the Brilliant Resort and Spa and it's due to open this fall in Yunnan Province, China. It seems like everything about China is growing rapidly, and luxury hotels and resorts seem to be just another facet of its booming economy.
Yunnan is in the south-west corner of China, west around the border from Hong Kong and Macau. The Brilliant Resort lies next to the Yang-Zong Lake, surrounded by mountains, and consists of 23 lake-view villas with their own jacuzzi and garden area. You also get butler service thrown in and if you book the Presidential Villa, your own chef.
Unbelievably, beyond the villas are a further 26 outdoor hot spring pools, each unique in function and appearance, and inside the Brilliant Spa you can relax with special-technique massages. And it really must be brilliant and special because the rates are brilliantly high, too: double rooms start from $3,500 a night, and that extra-brilliant Presidential Villa is yours for just $15,000 a night.
Marriott hotels seem to be springing up in China faster than Olympic stadiums. The chain plans to quadruple its hotels in China to 100 in the next five to six years. Two hotels -- in Beijing and Shanghai -- opened this week alone.
When the 23-story, 588-room J.W. Marriott Hotel Beijing opened Tuesday, to much fanfare, including the expected ribbon cutting along with dragon dancing and celebratory costumes. J. W. Marriott Jr. himself announced the company's plans to operate 11 hotels in Beijing by the opening of the 2008 games (it currently ha five). Marriott will also set up places for people to sleep in what it called "second-tier" cities, like Wuxi and Wuhan.
As usual, Billy boy blogged about the Chinese expansion on his blog. But it was Marriott EVP of Global Communications, Kathleen Matthews who went even further by posting this video of the opening on YouTube. Man, those Marriott folks are getting so internet savvy. Will they soon join Facebook?
Cubicle Dreamin' is a feature in which we ask the hotel mavens to take some time out of their busy work day, surf the Internet, and tell us what hotel they wish they could beam themselves to right that very second--all on the slave driving companies dime, of course. Oh, like these people aren't surfing aimlessly anyway--at least now their purposeless clicking will be cobbled together into useful hotel stories--we hope. Have a destination hotel you are just dying to leave your cube for? Send the story our way.
In this episode, Hotel Maven Amanda K heads to China. Enjoy.
The enterprising Chinese don't want to have to travel too far to experience something new, so they're just putting the finishing touches on their own version of Switzerland, with their copy of the Swiss village of Interlaken due to open up next week in Shenzhen.
Now, while I'm really all for enjoying travel experiences in the their rightful and authentic places, I have to admit to being intrigued about the Chinese version of Switzerland, and especially the 5-star Interlaken OCT Hotel sounds pretty inviting. Listen to this for a start:
The Interlaken OCT Hotel greets guests with a themed lobby lounge resembling a medieval European cathedral with high-vaulted ceilings, gothic chandelier and stained glass windows - with the "church" theme reinforced by an altar-style wine display behind the bar, staff uniforms and menus.
It seems like there's a new top range hotel opening up every week in China these days. And if you've caught wind of the rate of skyscraper building in cities like Beijing and Shanghai, then you wouldn't be surprised that at least some of that space is going to hotels.
This week it's Tianjin's turn, a large city about 2 hours' drive from Beijing, where we heard that the Raffles Hotels and Resorts chain is going to open the Raffles Tianjin Hotel next year. It'll sit 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 (of all the other skyscrapers they're building, presumably).
In fact, the Raffles will be Tianjin's first penthouse hotel, but we'd be surprised if it stops there. There's already talk of a Radisson opening up. And while Tianjin isn't as well known as its big cousin cities, it is China's third largest urban area and it has a large international airport. Still, we're just wondering...who's planning their next vacation in Tianjin?
Ritz-Carlton is continuing its China blitz with their first resort opening in 2008. They've already got two Ritz-Carlton hotels up and running (Shanghai and Hong Kong) and another five come online in the next couple of years, but the Ritz-Carlton Sanya at Yalong Bay on the South China Sea will be the first resort. The marketing blurb has China far beyond a developing country and makes staying in Sanya sound like almost the ultimate in resort getaways:
China continues to enhance its reputation as a desirable destination for exploration by the world's most sophisticated leisure travelers. Sanya, with its tropical climate, pristine beaches, and array of unique and exotic natural attractions is an exciting new location.
To be fair, the resort does sound pretty nice, with individual plunge pools attached to each of 35 luxury villas. The rest of us will be able to stay in 600 square foot guestrooms, which they boast are the largest in the region. Hot springs, caves, tropical forest and beaches are nearby when it all gets too much, but 2008 will be the earliest you can get there.
When you hear the name Best Western, the images that likely come to mind are roadside motels with ugly rooms, scratchy sheets, and disposable packets of cheap soap and shampoo. But like an expatriate reinventing herself in a new country, in China the chain is spreading its upscale "Premier" hotels. (Indeed this pic above is from a Best Western in Shenzen.)
A story out in the Wall Street Journal this past weekend (subscribers only) says that the chain is scrapping plans to open a bunch of 3-star budget hotels and has decided instead to launch 40 more luxury hotels to add to its current 20. The main reason? Chinese don't stop and stay along highways and oh yeah, the highways aren't really too great.
The company had planned to replicate in China its American business model: midprice hotels strategically located along highways. That plan changed after it discovered that the rollout of China's national highways is 'not happening as fast as we thought.'
We're assuming this means you get to your Chinese Premier room from an interior hallway and you won't have to slide your credit card under a plexiglass partition when checking in....
