Wow! What a change! Granted, if you choose to compare to some 40 years ago, there will be changes, but still. In the 70’s there were essentially 2 hotels that were open to foreigners in Beijing: the rambling composite (5 parts built at different times since the beginning of the 20th century) Peking Hotel, on Chang’An, near TianAnMen, and the H’sin Chiao (Xin Qiao) Hotel, in the old Legation Quarter.
Here is how a tour book (Odile Cail, Fodor’s guide, “Peking”, 1972) described them then: “The rooms in both are gloomy and badly furnished…the lighting is feeble…the carpets are threadbare…the plumbing is archaic, but nearly all the rooms have a bathroom – though it is rare that both the toilet and the shower to be working properly…the service is generally slow…but the staff are full of good will and are anxious to understand you even if they can…be prepared for a waiter to come to your room without knocking at any hour of the day or night…!”. One gets the drift! It was cheap, a few dozen of Yuan if that much (the Canadian $ then was worth about Yuan 1.35 as I recall – it takes now 6.5 Yuan to make a dollar!), but you got what you paid for. you could count on a clean room though, I should add.
Not that you did have much of a choice either between the two: you stayed where your ‘host’ had managed to get you a room. For right up to the early 80’s, you would show up at the airport, and if your host was not there to receive you, you would not know where to go!
Beside these 2 hotels, there were 2 more that were available while we lived there: the Minzu Fandian (Nationalities Hotel) and the Qianmen Hotel. We were more familiar with the first one, where they had a "European" restaurant.
It reminds me of the celebrated DongFeng hotel in Guangzhou (Canton), the first hotel I ever stayed in, in China. This was the “headquarters” for the foreigners who came to the semi-annual Canton Fair. (In that the Communists had not changed the century-old practice of isolating the trading activity to a specific place and a specific time!) This was my first incursion in The Middle Kingdom, fall of 1978, for several days while “manning” the Canadian suite during the bi-annual fair for the benefit of the then few Canadian businessmen. Very strong first impressions…the heat, the net that covered the bed at night, to protect against mosquitoes, the noisy streets – the incessant music of the klaxon, early in the morning (I think it was the law – you were responsible to alert other cars or people on the road of your presence…Also it was still the practice of warning people of the presence nearby of foreigners, by shouting “waiguoren”! as this older man did when I walked around the city, to go and see the small island of Shamian. Was on language training in Hong-Kong then, and I had come up to Guangzhou for the occasion (before shooting up for my first intro to Peking).
Already, in the mid 80’s, there were many more hotels – the Beijing Municipality boasted then that there were some 64 of them – this must have included the Beiwei (one bathroom per floor!) where I remember the Power Ministry had lodged a Quebec electric power delegation in 1980! Perhaps only a dozen of them were frequented by foreigners, most of those being joint-ventures – this was indeed the era of foreign joint-ventures (‘You foreigners venture, we Chinese join!” as the saying went at the time amongst foreigners, to illustrate the uneven and risky nature of such arrangements!) The first of these hotels was built with Canadian money (that of a Mr. Noble, a construction entrepreneur, from Toronto I think), the JianGuo. Noble had made money out of another real estate deal in Beijing, and since he could not take his profits out of the country, he invested it in that hotel!
For official delegations, there was not a problem: it was totally controlled and they were put in the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, a secluded complex in parkland, in the west side of the city.(Picture from rahuldlucca)I believe it became commercially available in the early 80’s. (As I was told then, “speak towards the chandelier if you want a change of towels”!) The Intercontinental Hotel – “Financial District” must be in that area as well, although I went somewhere else, as the “deal” was better…
Nowadays, there are thousands of hotels, a hundred of which I would have no problem staying at! All major international chains have one if not several venues here – for one, The Raffles has taken on and restored parts of the old Beijing hotel (Block B and Block E); plus a whole bunch of luxury boutiques ones, nested away around the city in hutongs and courtyards (the Yi House, Hotel Côté Cour, The Emperor, with its “Yin Bar” at the top, overlooking the roofs of the Forbidden City, the “retro chic” Red Capitalist Residence, Stark-style and modern Japan-inspired The Opposite House, etc. – see the Beijing 2012 Wallpaper City Guide), and countless “local standards” ones. There is even an Aman by the Summer Palace – I am staying at the Fairmont Hotel, just south of Jianguomenwai dajie. It looks brand new (this Canadian-managed chain has done such a good job in restoring the Peace Hotel in Shanghai – see blog, October 2010). Very luxurious; has a great gym and a 25-meter inside pool. Upgraded to a suite on the Gold floor, plus a deal: 3 nights for the price of 2 (a measure of the competition, plus the fact that business must be slow – this is no longer the peak of the tourist season!)
Beijing, September 12, 2011