The world’s leading luxury hotels are rushing to expand in Shanghai ahead of next year’s World Expo, with hopes high for the upscale travel sector in the Chinese financial hub despite the global downturn.
The opulent Peninsula, the only new building on the main part of Shanghai’s historic Bund in 60 years, just opened, embracing the city’s Jazz Age heyday with a chauffeur-driven 1934 Rolls Royce Phantom and a Great Gatsby-esque pool.
The Peninsula’s owner, Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Limited, is making a return to the ‘Paris of the East’ where it was founded after a 60-year absence, but it is facing stiff competition.
Ritz Carlton is building a second hotel here, Hyatt already has three landmark properties and Shangri-La is expanding from one to four hotels.
Conrad, Jumeirah, Waldorf Astoria and the legendary Peace Hotel – managed by Fairmont – are all also preparing to enter the fray, with work done or nearly completed on each property. Continue reading
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