{"id":29037,"date":"2011-01-07T11:08:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T11:08:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2020-05-14T18:40:55","modified_gmt":"2020-05-14T18:40:55","slug":"4037-catching-the-seven-stars-bug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/4037-catching-the-seven-stars-bug\/","title":{"rendered":"Catching the seven-stars bug"},"content":{"rendered":"

Guest post by <\/em>chinadialogue intern Cao Jun
\n<\/em>
\nOn Wednesday, Beijing’s western Mengtougou district announced at a<\/span> press conference<\/a> that it plans to cooperate with Saudi Arabia to build a seven-star hotel in the Chinese capital. This new landmark will cost at least one billion euros (US$1.3 billion) and will adopt a streamlined design similar to the Burj Dubai tower, the tallest building in the world.<\/p>\n

As five-stars is the highest rating in most hotel systems, there is no worldwide standard for a “seven-star hotel”, neither is it an official classification of quality. While the Burj Al Arab hotel in Dubai is the most widely referenced seven-star hotel, it was never formally awarded such a mark. The lack of official acknowledgement doesn’t seem to dampen Chinese local authorities’ enthusiasm towards luxury hotels, however. A brief search reveals there are already plenty of self-appointed seven-star hotels in China, even before the Mengtougou one appears.<\/p>\n

In Beijing, there is already a Pangu Seven Star Hotel Beijing<\/a> next to the Olympic Green. The entire dragon-shaped complex (the hotel is the tail), comprises a row of high-rise towers that stretch the length of seven football fields.<\/p>\n

In Haikou, a city of Hainan Island in southern China, another seven-star hotel is expected to start construction in 2012. With an estimated investment of 2.8 billion yuan (US$408 million), the Haikou Millennium Hotel<\/a> will be built on an artificial island of 50 mu (33.5 hectares), 300 metres from the coastline. Another 25 five-star and two seven-star<\/a> hotels will be built in the next decade in Haitang Bay alone, which is only one of the five major bays in Sanya, a tourism city also on Hainan Island.<\/p>\n

Cities such as Chengdu<\/a> and Chongqing<\/a> of Sichuan province in western China, as well as cities like Tianjin and Xiamen<\/a> of coastal Fujian province are all planning their seven-stars too. It seems the forces of the GDP contest remain strong, even with central government’s active moves towards a green economy.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the city with the first and most famous seven-star hotel is deeply troubled. In order to diversify its oil-based economy as a response to its declining oil reserves, Dubai built a series of luxury islands and skyscrapers, including the tallest tower and the seven-star hotel. However, a burst property bubble dragged Dubai into a serious debt crisis and put an end to its extravagant approach to growth. Intense construction and tourism also placed heavy burdens<\/a> on its local environment, leaving raw sewage in the gulf, depleted water resources and one of the world’s largest carbon footprints. Its artificial islands also became a hazard<\/a> to corals and local marine lives.<\/p>\n

Following the Dubai model, all these seven-star hotels in China require enormous amount of investment and resources, while exerting unnecessary environmental pressures. Now the question is, exactly how many self-claimed seven-star hotels do we need, if any at all? Or more importantly, how many can we afford to have, both economically and environmentally?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Guest post by chinadialogue intern Cao Jun On Wednesday, Beijing’s western Mengtougou district announced at a press conference that it plans to cooperate with Saudi Arabia to build a seven-star hotel in the Chinese capital. This new landmark will cost at least one billion euros (US$1.3 billion) and will adopt a streamlined design similar to the Burj Dubai […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_has_post_settings":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[758],"tags":[],"hashtags":[],"country":[],"class_list":["post-29037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nCatching the seven-stars bug | Dialogue Earth<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Guest post by chinadialogue intern Cao Jun On Wednesday, Beijing’s western Mengtougou district announced at a press conference that\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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