Renowned hotel reopens

Five-star facility welcomes back discerning guests, Li Wenfang and Zheng Caixiong report in Guangzhou.

While many hotel managers complain about fierce competition in the southern Chinese metropolis, White Swan Hotel is enjoying brisk business.

Huang Yingcong, president and general manager of the hotel, attributed it to the hotel's focus on human interest, culture and art, as well as the typical feature and style of the southern Chinese region, after the property reopened in July after being closed for about three years of interior reconstruction and redecoration.

The State-owned five-star hotel, located in Guangzhou, Guangdong province, has witnessed crowded restaurants and rooms after its reopening.

Many local residents have to wait for more than three hours to be seated in the hotel's restaurants to enjoy morning tea. In addition to Western-style food, the hotel is celebrated for its traditional Cantonese cuisine and dim sum.

White Swan Hotel, one of the major iconic buildings in Guangzhou, a trade and commercial hub in South China, closed in March 2012 and reopened in mid-July, with its amenities and services further improved.

In addition to major facility upgrades, the hotel has reduced its number of guest rooms from 843 to 520 after the interior reconstruction and decoration in more than 100,000-square-meters.

Its restaurants have introduced open kitchens to allow chefs to interact with their diners.

"White Swan Hotel is not an impersonal hotel," Huang said in an interview.

Most of the former staff returned to work when the hotel reopened in the wake of interior reconstruction and decoration, Huang said.

"Therefore, many frequent visitors can recognize their familiar faces and recall their previous memories when they visit our hotel again," Huang said.

Huang said he believes his hotel will have a bright future despite fierce competition in the local market, as White Swan Hotel can keep its tradition and human interest while insisting on reform and innovation in the following years.

"As a major trading and commercial hub in the southern Chinese region, the Guangdong provincial capital still has more space for White Swan Hotel's development in the future," he added.

Echo Zhang, senior guest relations manager of the hotel, said many second and third generations of White Swan Hotel staff have worked for the hotel.

"Many of our hotel guests are former frequent visitors, and they choose to stay in White Swan Hotel again because they want to recall their happy childhood memories in the hotel," Zhang said.

"They visited White Swan Hotel with their parents when they were only children, decades ago," she said.

In addition to business representatives, the hotel's guests include many tourists, she added.

Built in Bai'etan for more than HK$200 million ($25.77 million) more than 33 years ago, the 34-storey White Swan Hotel is the first five-star hotel designed, constructed and managed by Chinese people on the Chinese mainland. With a grand Pearl River view, the hotel is also regarded as a symbol of China's reform and opening-up policies.

Many State leaders and politicians, including British Queen Elizabeth II, former US Presidents Richard Nixon and George H.W. Bush, and former Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, have stayed in the hotel when they visited Guangzhou. Late Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping also visited the hotel three times.

Contact the writers through zhengcaixiong@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily 05/21/2016 page10)