Research and Markets has published China Budget Hotel Report, 2007-2008. Amongst much else it tells us that by the end of 2007, China had 1,689 budget hotels and 180,000 guest rooms.
The main budget hotel chain brands are Star of Jinjiang, Home Inn, Motel, Super 8, Sunny Youth Hotel, GreenTree Inn, 7 Days, Vienna, and Joy Inn.
In 2007, the domestic brands still dominated the market. The top three not only further strengthened their leading positions, but also showed their good potential for further development.
China’s budget hotels have a short history and the average age is about five and a half years.
Among the large cities in China, Shanghai has 286 hotels, ranking the first in terms of the number of budget hotels. In second place is Jiangsu Province, close to Shanghai, which has 182 budget hotels. Beijing comes next with 156 hotels. Guangdong Province and Zhejiang Province rank fourth and fifthwith 146 hotels and 126 hotels.
In the year 2000 China had only 23 budget hotels with a total of 3,236 guest rooms in 200. Now there are over 1,698 hotels with a total of 88,788 guest rooms which gives a growth rate of about 85%.
This rate probably cannot be maintained and the report forecasts that in the period 2008-2010, the growth of China’s budget hotels will slow down to, say, 42%.
The increasingly fierce market competition will raise service quality. Meanwhile the market will be consolidated widely by mergers and acquisitions.
Source: PR Inside
author Gareth Powell, source www.chinaeconomicreview.com
