TRENDS:COMING TO a breakfast buffet near you soon, dim sum, noodles and rice. That's if you're staying at a Starwood or Hilton hotel.
Both chains are starting to provide guests travelling from China with tea kettles, Chinese tea and slippers in their rooms, along with a choice of familiar foods at the breakfast buffet,
“We want to make sure that when Chinese travellers go outside of China that they are as comfortable as possible,” said a spokesperson for Starwood, which even moved its HQ to Shanghai for a month to build better relationships there. It is offering the new services at 19 hotels in cities like New York, Paris, London, Bangkok and Sydney.
Hotels are returning to the idea of it’s the little things that count, like a friendly smile, rather than trying to lure guests with fancy freebies.
Hilton Worldwide calls its programme for Chinese travellers huanying which means welcome in Mandarin. It will roll out the concept to 30 hotels next month.
Starwood estimates that the number of people travelling from China will reach 100 million by 2015.