Seems like the Chinese are really catching on to the idea of the boutique hotel, and in Shanghai another one's just opened up. Ivy Shanghai is a 46-roomer built into the former Jiangning Cinema, one of the first cinemas built there in the 1950s when cinemas were finally allowed to be built! The area where the cinema screen used to be is now an atrium for guests to hang out it, including a coffee bar and a WiFi area.
With post-Olympics fever promising a tourist rush to China, we're advising you to wait until next year, at least if you're visiting Shanghai. That's because there's a new hotel opening up called The PuLi that we're keen to try out.
Its big promotion line is that it's China's first urban resort, although we're not keen on the concept that the relaxed nature of a real resort can truly transfer to the city--but then again, if the PuLi's relaxed-but-city-chic website is anything to go by, we could be wrong.
Every so often we feature a hotel review from one of our readers that we feel should be shared with the rest of you dear hotel guests. These reviews are highlighted because they are timely, about cool hotels in cool places and are relatively level-headed. Think you can submit one just like this? Send it in. Now, we present you with reader Eric's review of the URBN Hotel in Shanghai which he first heard about on HotelChatter. Enjoy.
I had just ended a long camping trip in the South of China, and arrived in Shanghai with no reservation. After this long trip, sleeping in tents and hostels, I craved a night or two of comfort.
I researched a few of Shanghai's upscale hotels on the internet and decided to pass on the luxurious monstrosities. Instead, I found the URBN Hotel, a new eco-friendly boutique establishment. Having enjoyed nature for the past couple weeks, I felt that a carbon-neutral hotel was appropriate for my next couple nights.
OK, you can start hyperventilating! Park Hyatt Hotels has just announced that its two newest properties opening in China this year, The Park Hyatt Beijing and The Park Hyatt Shanghai, will each claim a record for "Highest" something-or-other.
Scheduled to debut yet this month, Beijing's Park Hyatt has rocketed up inside the city's highest building, playing host to a bevy of other record-breakers: "the city's highest spa, Pian Spa (59-60th floors), and the city's highest restaurant, China Grill (63-66th floors)." This means the moneyed Olympics-goers will have a perch to enjoy a 360-degree view of the city, above the smog.
We've come across some computer-generated pics of what the coming W Shanghai - Pudong is meant to look like, and they've really got some hotel of the future theme happening here. In fact it's scheduled to open up in 2010, but we're thinking this futuristic thing needs a bit more time.
Details on the W Shanghai are sketchy at the moment but there are a bunch of different renderings doing the rounds--some that make the two towers totally look like light sabers, and this one that combines the light saber look with some futuristic hope that we'll all be arriving by helicopter.
What we do actually know is that there'll be 400 suites and guest rooms, five restaurants and a huge spa. It's being built in the Lujiazui financial district which we guess is why the W website makes unfunny jokes like this::
We have everything you need to stay on top of the game in Shanghai's booming scene, abacus not included.
And this:
Artisan calligraphy and Blackberrys. Taichi lessons and access to the hottest clubs
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.
We said they'd be opening in December, and they actually got there. On top of that, the whole concept of the URBN Hotel Shanghai is so unique that we really want to stay there. It's the first of a planned chain of carbon-neutral hotels in China and, the owners hope, the start of a new pro-environment trend in China.
The URBN Shanghai was built in an eco-friendly way by including both salvaged bricks and tiles from buildings that were being demolished, and by buying additional materials only sourced from local manufacturers. Other green factors include natural shading from living bamboo, and fluorescent lights which have been made ambient by housing them in lanterns--the result of six weeks' research.
Now that the hotel is up and running, any energy used--and that even includes the commuting done by staff--will be calculated and neutralized through buying carbon credits. Naturally, some of this will be built in to the price you're paying for a room, and with rates starting around 2000CNY (US$280), it's not a cheap place to stay, but it's a green one.
No, it's not a misprint, although any search engine worth its salt will try to suggest you search for "urban" instead: but Shanghai is about to get the first URBN Hotel. The first of a planned dozen or so "design and carbon neutral" hotels, the URBN Hotels, Shanghai is due to open in December and should be taking bookings in November, apparently--although the reservations tab on their website doesn't seem to be functioning yet.
The concept behind the URBN Hotel is impressive: as well as being a designer hotel, it aims to be totally carbon neutral both by building and operating in a green way, and by buying carbon neutral credits to offset some of the necessary activities of the hotel once it's up and running.
As well as being eco-friendly, the developers want guests at the URBN to get more deeply involved with their destination, so they'll be adding services like tai chi, yoga, Chinese cooking classes and even basic Mandarin lessons.
In the near future, URBN hopes to expand to cities including Beijing, Hangzhou, Dalian, and Suzhou, following the same method of renovating an existing structure and "greening it up". China and green seem like a new combination to us and we're looking forward to following the evolution of URBN.
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by amandak
