White Swan Hotel Closing For Renovations
The White Swan Hotel is the most popular hotel in Guangzhou for adopting families. All families adopting in China must end their trip in Guangzhou because the only American Consulate in China that handles international adoptions is in Guangzhou.
From China Hospitality News:
“White Swan Hotel Will Close For Renovation
April 18, 2007
The White Swan Hotel in Guangzhou will embark upon a 10-month renovation this December, after recent approval from the Guangdong Provincial Government.
The five-star hotel plans to close its business entirely during the large-scale renovation, which will cost RMB530 million. The facade, rooms, lobby, air-conditioning systems, power supplies and parking lots will all be renovated. A new 1,000-square-meter convention center and a multi-floor underground parking lot will be built. Following the re-development, rooms will be larger, but somewhat fewer than the present 843.
The hotel is the fourth five-star hotel in the city to undergo significant renovations in recent years, following the Dong Fang, Garden and China hotels and increasingly severe competition in the top-end hotel business.
The White Swan Hotel opened to the public and began operation on February 6, 1983. Three years later, it was accepted as the member of the “Leading Hotels of the World” for its excellent management and service. The hotel was awarded one of the first five-star hotels in China in 1990 and was selected as one of “A Hundred First-Class and Fifty Best Star Hotels of China” by National Tourism Administration of China in 1996. It has received over 40 heads of states and governments including Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II and President Bush of the United States.”
So this would mean the White Swan Hotel will be closed from December 2007 to October 2008. Hotel rooms will become larger causing the hotel to have fewer rooms. Hopefully, the White Swan will remain affordable for adopting families after the renovation.
This is from the Guangzhou provincial government website (dated 4-16-07):
link: http://www.gz.gov.cn/vfs/subsite/QFZZQNCH-UEYR-RYE4-CQEP-PO0PXEO7LORY/content/content.jsp?contentId=455739&catId=3262
Beginning in December of this year, the White Swan Hotel will be closed for 10 months for renovation. RMB 530 million is to be invested. The White Swan renovation project has been approved by the provincial government. According to the preliminary plan, every two or three rooms will be merged into one room. Therefore, after the renewal, the number of rooms will be fewer than the present 843.
Opened more than 20 years ago, the White Swan Hotel, China’s first Sino-foreign cooperative joint venture five-star hotel, has received more than 40 leaders of different countries, including British Queen Elizabeth II, U.S. President George W. Bush, former U.S. President Richard M Nixon, German Chancellor Helmut Kohl, Cuban President Fidel Castro, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Norodom Sihanouk, Lee Kuan Yew and other international celebrities.
Some adoption agencies are telling their clients that the White Swan will not completely close during renovations and they will be renovating specific sections at a time (floor by floor?). I haven’t seen anything on the internet to confirm this and agencies have notoriously given out information that have turned out to be totally incorrect. But who knows?
I am fearful that after the renovations the White Swan Hotel rates will go shooting up and the WS will be geared more towards businessmen on expense accounts rather than adopting families.