Hotel profile | Suzhou

Many international luxury hotel brands are expanding their business in Jiangsu province, a rapidly developing neighbor of Shanghai, but Jinling Hotel and Resorts say they can serve guests in a more people-oriented way, as they are more clued into the local culture.

The Nanjing-based Jinling Hotel and Resorts, the leading domestic hotel management brand, now manages 87 properties across China, including 75 luxury hotels and resorts.

Huafang Jinling International Hotel, the group's only property in the city of Zhangjiagang, has proved to be an ideal choice for business travelers after eight years of operations.

Zhangjiagang, a county level city of Suzhou, lies on the banks of the Yangtze River and is a 30-minute drive from downtown Suzhou. It is also close to the province's major cities, such as Wuxi. It takes just more than one hour to get there from Shanghai. As an up-and-coming industrial city in the Yangtze River Delta, Zhangjiagang is attracting more business travelers from home and abroad.

"We are always doing our best to provide considerate service to guests. In our hotel, every guest is a VIP," says Zhang Yan, the hotel's general manager.

The 28-story hotel offers 380 guest rooms with contemporary yet home-like design. Since the hotel is located in the very center of Zhangjiagang, guests can enjoy panoramic views of the city through the floor-to-ceiling windows. Each room and suite is equipped with free Internet and fax machines.

Guests can find a unique pillow menu in the guest room, which offers five pillow choices, including buckwheat, lavender, duck's down and cassia seed, a kind of Chinese herbal medicine often used to improve eyesight and lower blood pressure.

"We have a tracking system which can record each guest's preferences - for instance, what kind of fruit or pillow the guest prefers - so that the hotel staff can serve the guest according to the record and wow the guest the next time he or she comes," she says.

"In fact, it is not easy to gather such information, but the staff members will try their best to talk with the guests and ask for their suggestions."

MICE (meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions) guests are the hotel's major client base, as it offers 12 meeting rooms, including a grand ballroom that can accommodate 1,000 people.

Huafang Jinling highlights authentic Huaiyang cuisine, the traditional cuisine of Jiangsu province, in its Chinese restaurant Plum Garden. The restaurant is an ideal choice for diners looking for high-end Huaiyang cuisine.

The hotel has eight other restaurants and bars, serving different cuisines, such as Italian, Japanese and German, to satisfy every palate.

"More than half of our guests are foreigners, so foreign-language training is important for our staff," Zhang says.

The hotel started hiring English teachers for monthly trainings in 2006 and added Korean lessons in 2008.

It also gives high importance to renovations.

Zhang says that in the second half of the year, the hotel will enlarge the washrooms in the guest rooms and redecorate the private dining rooms.