Top-rated hotels offer down-to-earth services during pandemic

02:44

Around the world, the hotel industry has been hit hardby the COVID-19 pandemic. Some are still closed. But many top-rate luxury hotels are offering basic needs for the very people in their neighborhoods.

Spicy crayfish, barbecue, hot pot … customers in many Chinese cities can now have these popular midnight street foods at luxury hotels.

Dahe Jinjiang Hotel, a four-star hotel in the central Chinese city of Zhengzhou, has actually provided this type of street food on its open balcony for a couple of years. But it's never thought of completely counting its revenue before.

This summer, that has become its last straw to make up for the losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Li Hongwei, chairman of Dahe Hotel Investment Management Co., told CGTN that "our revenue was zero in February and March. We had a loss of around six million yuan (about 847,900 U.S. dollars) those two months. It was so hard."

According to the China Hospitality Association, the coronavirus outbreak plunged Chinese hotel occupancy rates to only 18 percent in the first four months. The hotel industry saw a loss of several hundred billion yuan.

Many star-rated hotels started to provide a series of down-to-earth services to help themselves, and avoid shutting down.

Besides late-night dining, Dahe Jinjiang Hotel launched takeout services on online food delivery platforms for the first time. It also signed contracts with local nursing homes and delivered them steamed buns and eggs every day. Its chairman and managers even went to the roadside and communities to sell their "street-food" breakfast to local residents.

Dahe Jinjiang Hotel delivered steamed buns to local nursing homes. Xia Ruixue /CGTN

The money wasn't great, but it helped at these special times.

A local resident said that "It's a four-star hotel. I believe it will provide the food with better quality than the food stalls on the street."

Another diner told CGTN that "they checked our temperatures before we entered the hotels. We feel safer dining here."

Li said he watched the weather forecast every day. "If it rains, we'd worry. It meant our late-night dining services had to stop. And we would lose almost 100,000 yuan of revenue," he added.

Shangri-La Hotels in the cities of Xiamen and Shenyang also began offering online laundry services. People can enjoy it for an average of 20 yuan. Some hotel chefs did livestreaming shows to sell their food.

(Cover image: Star-rated hotels provide down-to-earth services. Xia Ruixue /CGTN)