Hanting Hotels plans to open 10,000 hotels by 2030 to become the world's largest single hotel brand as it sheds its budget image and shifts toward the high-end market.
Hanting has 2,411 hotels in China right now, and the Shanghai-based firm will have upgraded 80 percent of them to the Hanting 3.0 standard by the end of next year, The Yicai Paper cited Chief Executive Xu Haochun as saying on July 14. It will wind down those that it does not renovate.
Hanting 3.0 mostly focuses on improving designs and digitization and will result in higher quality rooms but without price hikes, Xu said, adding that it will also cut management costs and be a time-saver for franchisees. The firm unveiled the standards on July 13 and Xu compared them with those of luxury hotels, though the rooms will still be limited by the existing space and facilities available at the properties.
Chinese consumers are no longer content with staying at cheap hotels, said Zhang Min, chief executive of Hanting's parent Huazhu Group. They want more in terms of quality accommodation and so there is no room for budget hotels to try and become cheaper.
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