News

Jin Jiang aims to become China's most recognised hotel brand

20 Oct 2011 by ReggieHo

Jin Jiang International Hotels, a leading Chinese hospitality group ranked by industry analysts as the 12th largest global chain, is not only keen on strengthening its brand portfolio, but achieving a prestigious domestic as well international reputation.

“China has good homegrown hotel brands but no real national hotel brand,” Bernold O Schroeder, Jin Jiang’s new chief executive officer, told Business Traveller. “For a country of China’s size, this should not be the case. It needs to develop a national hotel brand.”

Schroeder, a hotel veteran recently joining the group, is looking ahead at opportunities for Jin Jiang to capitalise on the glittering China outbound travel market. It may be early days but part of Jin Jiang’s growth strategy includes planting its banners in key cities Chinese frequent travellers visit - New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore among others.

According to the Blue Paper, issued this week under the auspices of Hilton Hotels and Resorts and the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the University of London, about 57.39 million Chinese left the country in 2010, an increase of 20 percent on 2009. “This increase is likely to continue and confirms a general trend towards more outbound travel among China’s growing middle classes,” the study concluded. For more information, click here.

Against this positive background, Schroeder said: “The Chinese traveller will want a comfort zone when they visit new destinations, and that’s where Jin Jiang comes in.” This will translate in the infusion of what Schroeder describes as a “Mandarin flavour” into the customer touch points such as the check-in, newspapers, TV channels, F&B offerings and, generally, the whole service culture. However, he stressed these future Jin Jiang outposts would adhere to international quality standards that would hopefully also attract non-Chinese guests.

Schroeder saw no difficulty in being able to fill up rooms overseas, with the help of Jin Jiang’s subsidiary Jin Jiang Travel. But the pressing task at hand, he said, was to develop “showcase” Jin Jiang-branded hotels and resorts around the country to build up customer loyalty and impress avid consumers of the hotel lifestyle.

Besides the flagship Jin Jiang brand, the company counts JJ Inn, Marvel and the new luxury J-Hotel tier - the first property will occupy the upcoming Shanghai Tower in 2014 (see story here) - in its portfolio. It also owns well-known properties such as the Peace Hotel, Waldorf Astoria, InterContinental Pudong, Sofitel Hyland and JC Mandarin, all in Shanghai, as well as a 50 per cent share in US company Interstate Hotels, which boasts some 300 hotels around the country.

For more details on the company, visit www.jinjianghotels.com

Margie T Logarta

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