Designs for China

Mathew Lui and his team have helped shaped China's hotel industry over the past two decades, sometimes quite literally. He gives Rebecca Lo some insider tips on which cities are coming up.

If you build it, they will come. This famous line paraphrased from the 1989 film Field of Dreams seems to be the rationale for the extensive hospitality expansion throughout China in the past 20 years.

For Mathew Lui, partner with the Hong Kong office of Hirsch Bedner Associates, building a shiny new hotel in a sprawling mixed-use complex in a developing Chinese destination does not always equate with success for the owner or operator.