The Genting Hotel - Secret Garden in Chongli on August 15 (Photo: Xie Jun/GT)
Suites for skiers
In 2003, the hilly county of Chongli in Zhangjiakou, North China's Hebei Province, started down the path to transform itself from unremarkable rural backwater into a tourist destination for skiers. It took a while, but over the last five years, several high-end hotels have been built to support the county's budding skiing industry. With Chongli slated to host several events at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games, Global Times reporter visited the area to find out how the luxury hotel boom has changed the county.
A river divides Chongli county in Zhangjiakou, North China's Hebei Province, which will host several events at the 2022 -Olympic Winter Games.
On the west side of the river, in what the locals call old town, trash litters streets lined with dirty bungalows and ramshackle roadside stalls.
Other than the odd government office buildings, few structures stand higher than four stories.
On the east side of the river, in what locals call new town, sits the Monte Fontaine, a 30,000-square-meter, four-star hotel featuring its own spa and karaoke parlor.
The price for a standard double room at Monte Fontaine is about 500 yuan ($78.10) per night in August, almost the same price as a room at a hotel of the same quality in Beijing or Shanghai.
At night, the lights from the Monte Fontaine and neighboring luxury hotels bath the street, which bustles with tourists taking photographs. Across the square, well-dressed people stroll into the local theater.
It wasn't that long ago that new town looked a lot like old town, little more than vegetable fields, bungalows and small restaurants, said Yu Changhong, deputy general manager of the four-star Rongchen International Holiday Hotel, Chongli's first high-end hotel.
The Rongchen International was built in 2009 to capitalize on the county's growing ski industry.
Now it is just one of the many luxury hotels that line Yuxing Road, on the east end of Chongli.
"Luxury hotels have made Chongli a much more prestigious place," Yu told the Global Times on Saturday.
The 2,000-square-kilometer county has undergone a luxury hotel boom over the last decade or so.
There are five high-end hotels in Chongli, with at least five more under construction.
Serving skiers
The luxury hotels have been built on the foundation that is Chongli's skiing industry.
The county's first ski resort, the Wanlong Ski Resort, opened in 2003. Since then, the industry has developed gradually.
The Rongchen International was still considered a risky venture at the time it was built.
"There was no guarantee that the developers would be able to recover the cost of building such a hotel," said Yu, the vice president.
In the first four years after the hotel opened, business wasn't very good, with an average occupancy rate of about 20 percent, Yu said.
Yu noted most local hotels had to face the difficulties of slack businesses in their early years of operation.
Still, other hotel developers also bet on Chongli's future as a skiing destination. The Monte Fontaine opened in 2011, followed by the Genting Hotel - Secret Garden in 2013.
The Genting Hotel's business has improved every year since it opened, said a hall manager who refused to disclose his name.
"In the winter, our rooms need to be booked at least a month in advance. Only two rooms in the hotel are available today," the manager said on Saturday.
The number of skiers and tourists who visited Chongli in the winter of 2014 jumped 17.4 percent year-on-year, according to a report of the Xinhua News Agency on July 28.
A Beijing tourist at the hotel who didn't want to be named said she and her husband often stay at the hotel.
"It's very expensive to stay at Genting, but it makes my trip very comfortable. I don't think I would come here so often if there was not such a good hotel to stay at," she told the Global Times on Saturday.
Olympic winner
On July 31, the news broke that Zhangjiakou and Beijing won their joint bid for the Winter Games.
"The announcement was a particularly exciting moment for Chongli," Yu said. "After the International Olympic Committee read the announcement, many people set off firecrackers to celebrate."
Yu said that the Winter Games would launch a "golden era" for the high-end hotel industry in Chongli, as the event would increase the prestige of the county and bring in more tourists.
"As far as I know, as many as five luxury hotels are now under construction in Chongli," he said.
As part of the Genting ski resort, which will host several events of the Winter Games, the Genting Hotel has a particular reason to celebrate.
The hotel's staff has decorated the building interior and exterior with signs featuring Olympic slogans.
The hall manager at Genting said that he couldn't reveal any plans about the Winter Games so far, but said that "many jobs need to be done" to prepare the hotel for the event.
Recruiting difficulties
However, high-end hotels have also had problems such as trouble with finding suitable workers in Chongli, which has 90,000 farmers.
Over the years, the county's hotels - both luxury and budget - have provided local people with many job opportunities.
The Genting hall manager said the hotel hires local villagers as cooks, waiters and ski instructors in the winter time.
Yu also said that the majority of Rongchen International's staff is composed of locals.
However, many of those hotels are having a hard time recruiting locals, Yu said.
"The majority of Chongli's young people have gone to other cities to seek jobs," he noted. "The remaining young people are looking for an easy life and do not want to work hard."
Yu also said that high-end hotels usually have more difficulties with recruitment because they have higher requirements for their staff than budget hotels.
On Saturday, the Rongchen International displayed a recruitment advertisement on a screen above its entrance.
Still, it remains unclear how much of the benefits of the luxury hotel boom are reaching ordinary villagers.
According to Yan Shibin, a resident of Er'daoying, a village nearby the Genting ski resort, only about 10 of the 700 people in his village have ever worked at the resort.
It wasn't considered a great job.
"It was temporary work, and it didn't pay very well," he said.
Yan said that a part-time job in Genting Hotel usually pays about 1,500 yuan per month, but the people in his village can make about 7,000 yuan per month growing vegetables in a good year.
With the Winter Games on the way, Yan hopes that the luxury hotels will bring more benefits to Chongli, such as "enhancing the image of Chongli's old town" and "providing more stable, well-paid job opportunities."
