Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts, the Asia Pacific region's leading luxury hotel group, will expand in the Chinese mainland from 19 hotels currently to at least 32 by the end of 2007.

To meet this goal, the number of staff required will jump from 10,000 to 19,000, the company said on Tuesday as it opened its 19th hotel in the Chinese mainland in east China's Fujian Province.

The Hong Kong-based group expressed confidence in the mainland's hotel market and declared its intent to further accelerate expansion.

"With the ascendancy of China as a world economic power, more and more two-way investment and trade have ensured the great potential of the mainland's tourism and hotel market," said Giovanni Angelini, the group's chief executive officer.

It is predicted that China will become the globe's most popular tourist destination from 2015 to 2020, Angelini said.

Since Shangri-La founded its first mainland hotel in Hangzhou of Zhejiang Province in 1984, the group has considered the mainland one of its most important markets. The nation's rapid economic development and the upcoming Beijing Olympics offer Shangri-La a great opportunity for further expansion, Angelini revealed.

A list provided by the group of the locations for the 26 planned hotels showed Chinese mainland will be home to 18 of them.

After Shangri-La's first run at the mainland's large cities and special economic zones in the 1980s, the group is now focused on its second round of growth, centered on small and medium-sized cities.

Most of the 18 hotels planned for the mainland are scattered in regional centres such as Haikou in Hainan Province, Baotou and Hohhot in Inner Mongolia, Guilin in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Dongguan in Guangdong Province, where there are few luxury hotels.

With a convenient and considerate network and multi-regional service, the hotel group is meeting the needs of the market by the development of its hotels in various mainland cities, said Angelini.

The group also founded the Shangri-La Academy at the end of last year, to help train staff and keep pace with the group's rapid expansion into mainland China, Angelini said.

From one hotel in Singapore in 1971, the group now manages 44 hotels under its two brands - Shangri-La and Traders Hotels - in key cities of Asia, the Middle East and most sought-after leisure destinations.

(China Daily January 27, 2004)