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Global hotel supply center opens in Shanghai

By Chen Qide (China Daily Shanghai Bureau)
Updated: 2010-08-02 09:48

A global hotel supply center opened in Shanghai's Songjiang district Saturday as the first phase of the project to build the China headquarters of the World Hotel Association (WHA).

More than 30 companies are now based in the center, which cost 700 million yuan in investment, said Chen Shaosheng, vice president of WHA, at the Third World Hotel Investment Summit which closed Saturday.

The summit themed "boosting development and win-win co-operation" is co-sponsored by WHA and the China Business Development Center to push tourism.

The supply center functions as a platform for wholesale, retail, exhibition, R&D and foreign trade of hotel products.

Chen said it will provide hundreds of thousands of quality products from more than 1,000 enterprises at home and abroad for customers.

"We plan to turn into an important global hotel supply center that puts together product research, manufacturing, exhibition, trade and financial service," he said.

The second phase of the China headquarters project will consist of the World Hotel Culture Museum, the China Headquarters Building of WHA, the International Conference Center and the WHA Leaders Club, which are expected to take several years to complete, Chen said.

"Launching such a project in Shanghai aims to create a State-level hotel culture zone for the world, boosting the growth of China's as well as the world's hospitality industry," said Wu Junlin, executive president of WHA.

The summit which was supported by the tourism authorities from the United States, France, Japan, Greece, Australia, Thailand, South Korea, Finland and Spain will provide a financing and investment channel for luxury hotels, Wu said.

Participants at the summit shared good ideas and suggestions from the discussion about the right path of investment and co-operation and more understanding about the trend of the high-end consumption market in the hospitality industry.

He Jianmin, professor from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, said the right investment and managing strategy for China's hospitality industry is to make a right choice of market opportunities, cultivate the investment ability and determine the best investment model.

His words were echoed by Jeong-Gil Choi, professor from Korea's Kyung Hee University, saying the first strategy for most hotels is to obtain profits from their efforts, to reinforce internal management and improve efficiency.