Guangzhou Developing Citywide Biz Travel Infrastructure
<B>Guangzhou Developing Citywide Biz Travel Infrastructure</B>
By Judy Jacobs
With a new airport, conference center and several commercial areas on the way, Guangzhou intends to further strengthen its role as one of China's most important business travel destinations.
In line with the city's development, Marriott is increasing its visibility in the city, with the re-branding of the China Hotel. In January, the China Hotel, formerly a Renaissance property, became the China Hotel by Marriott, joining the company's three other Chinese Marriotts, located in Chongqing, Shenyang and Hong Kong. The rebranding of the Guangzhou property is a move that will make the hotel even more viable for business travelers than it was in the past.
"As a Marriott, it will be the only five-star hotel in Guangzhou with a loyalty program," said Daniel Lai, Marriott's director of sales and marketing in China. "We will have computers in all the suites and we're putting in fiber-optic cable and ISDN lines for high-speed Internet connections by the end of this month." Equally important is the hotel's location in central Guangzhou, opposite the Chinese Export Commodities Fair building, venue for the Canton Trade Fair held each spring. The Fair once provided the only entry to China for those wishing to do business there and continues today as one of the country's most important commercial events, but it's not just during the trade fair when the hotel is booked by business travelers.
"Eighty-six percent of our business year-round is corporate," said Franco Io, the China Hotel's director of marketing. "One-third of all foreign investment in China is in Guangdong province (of which Guangzhou is the major city). Proctor & Gamble, Motorola, IBM, 3M, Boeing and Lucent Technologies are among our corporate clients."
The China Hotel caters to these corporate clients with 1,013 guest rooms and 278 serviced apartments. The complex in which it is located also includes an office tower, as well as an international pre-school for families of long-stay guests of the serviced apartments. Meeting and conference facilities include a ballroom accommodating up to 800 for banquets or 1,500 for cocktail receptions.
Marriott's improvements to the China Hotel are indicative of what's happening in Guangzhou as the city continues expanding and upgrading facilities to accommodate its six main industries--tourism, energy, transportation, automobile manufacturing, trade and information technology. Formerly rural Tian He--at the far eastern end of Guangzhou--is being developed for joint venture projects with new office and apartment buildings rising from what were vegetable fields less than a decade ago. Tian He also is the location of the Guangzhou Eastern Railway Station, which has service directly to Kowloon Station in Hong Kong.
Another new area Guangzhou has targeted for development is the region south of the Pearl River. It will be the site of the city's new exhibition center, which is scheduled to be ready in 2003 and, at 10.8 million square feet, will be larger than the current Chinese Export Commodities Fair building. The city also is planning to build new hotels in these developing areas.
"We will add 3,000 to 4,000 more hotel rooms in the city's eastern and southern districts beginning next year," said Liu Ping, director of the Guangzhou Tourism Bureau. "We currently have 1,500 hotels with 120,000 rooms in Guangzhou, and a citywide average occupancy of 61 percent."
The city will further improve its infrastructure with the opening of a new international airport in Huadu City just north of Guangzhou. The new facility will replace Baiyun Airport. Since the project was announced two years ago, the area around Huadu has begun to develop as a manufacturing district for handbags, footwear and clothing for export. Plans also call for a major railway station.
To improve local transportation, Guangzhou in 1998 opened its first subway line, which runs from east to west. The second phase of the system, a north-south line, is under construction and a third phase will connect the new airport to downtown Guangzhou.
Another improvement for business travelers is yet to come. "A 72-hour free visa for foreigners to enter Guangdong province is expected next year," said Liu. "This will be beneficial to business travelers who need to come to China for just a brief visit.