Due to the changing tourism market, the first half of the year witnessed low hotel revenues and decreasing consumption in Wuxi, according to the Wuxi Tourist Hotels Association.
The association's recent survey indicated that the income of five-star hotels rose 6.92 percent over 2014, while that of budget hotels dropped 1.42 percent. Room occupancy at four- and five-star hotels rose 15.58 percent and 6.62 percent respectively, while that of budget hotels fell 1.71 percent.
In the wake of the emerging self-organized tourism, hotels in Wuxi face new market opportunities.
The 60s and 70s generations prefer family trips and after the 80s and 90s generations prefer touring with friends, said the association.
They tend to have comfortable and pleasant tours, rather than travel on a shoestring. Especially in accommodation, they favor high star-level hotels.
However, both hotels' hardware and software lag behind and few new products are coming into the market. Per capita catering consumption continued to fall over the past years, even dropping to 100 yuan ($16.11) in some high star-level hotels.
"In 2014, Wuxi was among 35 Chinese cities with bigger losses in the hotel industry than that in 1999," said Huang Jianzhong, director of Wuxi Tourist Hotels Association.
Meanwhile, online tourism is impacting hotels. Mutual benefits between hotels and online companies must be taken into consideration.
At present, Wuxi has surplus high star-level hotels, business hotels and budget hotels but lacks car camping, guesthouses and houses for pensioners.
Therefore, the tourist hotel industry in Wuxi has to diversify to meet requirements of visitors of all ages, Huang said.
