After twenty years of rapid growth in the economy, China has now become one of the world’s most attractive destinations for tourists, which means great opportunities for the development of hotels. China, along with its entry into WTO, will further open its tourism market according to Reasearch and Markets report.

It was definitely put forward in Chinas 11th Five-Year Plan to actively develop culture and tourism industries with huge demand potential. Meanwhile, China National Tourism Administration also clarified the program to comprehensively develop domestic tourism, boost inbound tourism and regulate the outbound tourism according to the 11th Five-Year Plan so as to realize the goals of inbound overnight tourists 68.8 million and domestic tourists 1.78 billion with a total tourism income of USD 156.5 billion.

According to the forecast of WTTC, China tourism industry will keep an average annual growth rate of 10.4% in the coming ten years, among which individual and enterprise/government tourism consumption will increase by 9.8% and 10.9% respectively.

The rapid growth of the tourism industry led to increasingly prosperity of hotel subsidiary industries, especially after SARS of 2003, star-level hotels and budget hotels in Chinas major cities developed rapidly.

By the end of 2005, Chinas star-level hotels totaled to 12930, increasing 2042 with a year-on-year rate of 18.75%, hotel rooms reached 1.37 million, increasing 132.1 thousand with 10.67%, beds amounted to 2.55 million, increasing 183.4 thousand with 7.75%. Considering the current investment enthusiasm in hotel industry, the estimated amount of star-level hotels will reach 13500 by the end of 2006.

During the past three years, budget hotels have kept a rapid growth of above 50% and entered a continuous growth period. In Oct of 2006, Home Inns was listed in American NASDAQ, which also attracted capital to Chinas domestic budget hotels.