Published : 2025-06-10
On June 10, 1984, China Hotel (中國大酒店), located on Liuhua Road in Yuexiu District, Guangzhou, was completed and opened for business.
China Hotel is one of the first large-scale five-star hotels operated by Chinese and foreign partners in China.
China Hotel boasted as many as 1,013 guest rooms, breaking the records of the Dongfang Hotel and Baiyun Hotel. It became the most high-end and sought-after hotel at that time, deeply loved by people at home and abroad.
In the early days of its opening, the average occupancy rate of China Hotel reached more than 90%. Such a high occupancy rate made China Hotel a barometer of business activities in Guangzhou.
During the spring and autumn sessions of the Canton Fair each year, China Hotel was in high demand.
Within less than 10 years of official operation, China Hotel had repaid its principal and interest ahead of schedule, "earning" back a five-star hotel within nine years, and operated very successfully.
Looking back, the construction history of China Hotel dates back to the early days of the Reform and Opening-up when an official from Guangzhou came to Hong Kong to meet with some industrialists and invite them to invest in the Mainland.
During this period, patriotic Hong Kong businessman Wu Ying-sheung (胡應湘) proposed the construction of a high-end hotel. He then received support from Li Ka-shing (李嘉誠), Kwok Tak-seng (郭得勝), Fung King-hey (馮景禧), Lee Shau-kee (李兆基), and Cheng Yu-tung (鄭裕彤) who attended the meeting.
The group eventually raised one billion Hong Kong dollars to form a new company, Hopewell Holdings Ltd, and appointed Wu Ying-sheung as the general manager.
In April 1980, the company signed a contract with the Guangzhou municipal government to cooperate in the construction of China Hotel.
It stipulated that Party A (Guangzhou) would provide land for free, and Party B (the new joint venture) would raise funds for construction.
The period was set at 20 years, during which time Party B would operate independently. At the end of the period, all properties would be handed over to Party A under normal business conditions.
This move pioneered the "BOT" model (Build-Operate-Transfer) and made China Hotel the first fully foreign-invested and -managed enterprise in Mainland China.
Since 1984, China Hotel has consistently been one of the most famous high-end hotels in Guangzhou.
In its early years, it was the model of China's five-star hotels and trained a large number of professional hotel management talents.
Interestingly, the TV series Public Relations Girl (《公關小姐》) which was very popular throughout China in the 1980s, was filmed based on the professionally serviced China Hotel.
