Chengdu News

After launching the Hanting budget hotel brand last year, Ji Qi, the founder of Home Inn, has just launched another economy hotel brand called Hanting Express Inn.

Hanting Express already has outlets in places like Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Chengdu, and the company is planning more expansion in the coming months.

When Ji Qi first launched the Hanting brand, he said that the Hanting Hotel would be a mid-tier economy hotel targeting Chinese businessmen. At RMB300 per night, the average room rate for Hanting Hotel is higher than Home Inn, so Hanting calls itself a deluxe budget hotel. But the Hanting Express Inn is now targeted at the same lower cost market that companies like Home Inn, Motel 168, Super 8, and Jin Jiang Inn occupy.

China's National Development and Reform Commission's "2006 China Budget Hotel Investigation Report" shows that, budget hotels in China only occupy about 3% of the hotel sector, but the rate in America is as high as 60%. Budget hotels do have great space for development in China and have already attracted both domestic and overseas investors eager to get rich off this virgin sector.

Ji says that the development for budget hotels has just started, but following the increasingly prosperous business outlook, this sector should soon see a boisterous upswing in business.

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