Hyatt continues Greater China push with new Beijing, Shanghai hotels

Hyatt International will launch its second hotel - the high-end Park Hyatt - in Beijing next month to catch the influx of visitors arriving for the Olympic Games in August. It also plans to double its management portfolio in Greater China by 2010.

Also planned is the Park Hyatt Shanghai, which will be Hyatt's 13th hotel in Greater China.

In April, the company opened the Grand Hyatt Guangzhou in Pearl River New City, the southern city's central business district.

Grahame Carder, Hyatt International's vice-president of marketing for Asia-Pacific, said this was a strange year for China. 'We know underlying trends are strong but you get all these up and downs along the way.'

Sectors such as construction, marketing and sports are doing particularly well with the Games, he said, but added that such business has a tendency to quickly disappear. As hotel guests, those in 'these businesses displaced [those in] other businesses', he said. 'People can't get hotel rooms and they are distracted and absorbed by the Games.'

Mr Carder sees more opportunities than challenges because more infrastructure had been built for the Games, raising Beijing's attractiveness to the hospitality industry.

'I hope business will return to normal in 2009, with more convention business coming back to push hotel usage,' he said.