BEIJING - The hotel
industry is busy preparing for booming business
during the 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing.
Authorities expect the XXIX Olympic Games
- to be held August 8-24, 2008 - will attract at
least a million visitors from other parts of the
country and another half-million foreign tourists.
This will be a golden business opportunity
for the city's hotel industry, with record
revenues and occupancy rates expected.
Industry organizations are making great
efforts to improve service
quality in the capital's
hotels for the event, according to a Beijing
municipal government official.
"Beijing's
hospitality industry has experienced rapid growth
in the last two years, and the momentum will
continue in the lead-up to and even after the
Olympics," said Xiong Yumei, deputy director of
the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Tourism.
Hotels in the Chinese capital enjoyed good
business throughout 2005, with five-star hotels
witnessing the highest average daily revenue -
1,204 yuan (US$152) per available room, with an
occupancy rate of 75.3% - since 1994. Other
top-class hotels also had their highest-ever daily
revenue of 907 yuan per available room, according
to a report released by Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels,
a leading international service provider in the
hotel and tourism sector.
"Market growth
is positive and encouraging, and as the 2008
Olympics draw near, more and more tourists, both
from home and abroad, will come to Beijing," said
Stephen Hsu, vice chairman of the China Tourism
Hotel Association. "Hotel management standards and
service quality will also be gradually upgraded
over the next two years."
Said Xiong:
"Those figures are conservative estimates. Last
year, more than 1.5 million domestic travelers
visited Beijing during the major holiday periods
alone."
By 2008, the number of hotels in
the city is expected to grow to more than 800 from
the present 548, which includes 37 five-star
hotels and 83 four-star hotels, according to
figures from the Beijing Municipal Bureau of
Tourism. The current number of available beds is
570,000.
Among the more than 2 million
visitors expected from home and abroad, 50,000
will come with organizations sponsoring the
Olympics, and their accommodation will be provided
by the Beijing organizing committee for the Games
at four- and five-star hotels. This means most
other visitors will have to stay at less luxurious
hotels.
"Generally speaking, many of
Beijing's hotels meet international service
standards, but that is not enough," Xiong said.
"The most urgent thing right now is to improve
service quality in all hotels, especially the
city's inns, to meet visitors' demands. That is
what we are actively and carefully working on."
The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Tourism
has set up an Olympics "visitor accommodation
arrangement team" to study service in Beijing's
low-end hotels and inns. The team will release
service guidelines for the hotels to enhance
quality.
The bureau has published several
books listing details on services in the
hospitality sector during the Olympics, and has
distributed them to the hotels and inns for use in
training programs.
