Days Inn... A Hotel Chain Turns Upscale in China | nytimes.com
TRY to picture a Days Inn in a provincial Chinese city. Forget the rows of rooms facing a parking lot — that’s the American version — and think instead of a palatial lobby with marble floors and walls and ornate crystal chandeliers. Like hotels built in China by other American chains, Days Inns are almost unrecognizable to those familiar with their American counterparts. But in a country where labor costs are cheap — construction workers earn as little as $100 a month — hotel owners can afford to lay the luxuries on thick. And Chinese customers, “when they hear an American name, expect something special,” said Harry Tan, the chief executive of the Frontier Group and the mastermind behind the expansion of the Days Inn chain in China.
