By FRED A.BERNSTEIN


Try to picture a Days Inn hotel 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 low - construction workers earn as little as $100 a month - hotel owners can afford to offer more luxuries. 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.

“We couldn’t put a foreign name on it and have it look like a local hotel,” he said.

Mr.Tan said Holiday Inn, which has been in China since the 1980s, had raised expectations with fancy lobbies and lavish guest rooms, and “we had to follow.”

Then, too, most of the hotels managed by Days Inn China, which is part of the Singapore- based Frontier Group, are owned by people who have already made money in other businesses.

“They build for prestige value,” Mr.Tan said.“To be able to tell their friends, ‘Come stay in my hotel’ gives them a lot of face. They aren’t expecting a quick payback.”

In 2003, Mr.Tan and his brother, David, became the master franchisees for Days Inns in China, under a 25-year agreement with the Wyndham Hotel Group, which is based in Parsippany, New Jersey, and owns the Days Inn brand (as well as Super 8, Ramada, Howard Johnson and others). The Tans’ company - David is deputy chief executive - signs 10- or 15-year contracts to run the hotels in exchange for management and franchise fees. Wyndham, in turn, gets a percentage.

When the Tan brothers took over, other American hotel chains like Marriott and Holiday Inn were already thriving in China. By contrast, there was only one Days Inn hotel in the country, Harry Tan said. The chain now operates 25 hotels here and has about the same number under construction; the hotels have the titles Days Inn, Days Hotel or Days Hotel and Suites, depending on their amenities.

Harry Tan at a Days Hotel and Suites in Beijing, above and right.
He says customers expect something special from a U.S. brand.

Most customers - both leisure and business travelers - are Chinese. In big cities like Beijing, where the Tans’ office is located, Westerners may sometimes outnumber Chinese during peak tourist seasons. But in smaller cities, the ratio of Chinese guests to Westerners is as high as 20 to 1, Mr.Tan said.

That means he must cater to Chinese tastes. Among other things, Chinese travelers don’t look for plush beds.“We have to make them hard,” Mr.Tan said, “and if I served just a continental breakfast, like they do in the U.S., I’d be in big trouble.”

Mr.Tan credits Wyndham with allowing his company to tailor Chinese hotels to the Chinese market, creating what he calls “territory standards.”

Except in Beijing and Shanghai, rooms typically go for the equivalent of $30 or $40 a night.“Our pricing strategy is to be higher than the local hotels,” he said, “but not by much.”

At those prices, it may take a hotel owner 15 years or more to earn back his investment. But Chinese owners are generally patient, Mr.Tan said.

By some measures, China’s economy is slowing. But the expected growth in the hotel industry is still enormous, according to Patrick Ford, the president of Lodging Econometrics, a hotel research firm in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.“There are great opportunities in China for these midpriced brands,”he said.

China’s burgeoning urban population is partly behind the hotel growth; the country had more than 90 cities with one million or more people in 2005, according to a United Nations report. The move from rural to urban environs is “the biggest migration in the history of the world,” said Mr.Ford, who has made a number of trips to China.

Also, he said, “Chinese people are moving up the economic scale - and one of the first things people do when they move up the economic scale is travel.”

As of the second quarter of 2008, 1,240 hotels were being planned or built in China, and nearly 90 percent of them will be affiliated with a chain, Mr.Ford said. The Chinese chains include Jin Jiang, Home Inn and Green Tree.

Mr.Tan said being able to use the Days Inn name strengthened his pitch to hotel owners. “When I tell people Wyndham, they look on the Web site,” he said, and see the enormous size of the company. “To them, we’re like McDonald’s or KFC.”

Now, he said, he is hoping to build his chain to 200 or 300 hotels, mostly through new development.“We want numbers,” he said.