Hotel Policy

I will be traveling to Shanghai tomorrow. Which will be the first time in several months. I used to travel every month but recently haven't been up as things have been really busy in HK. Anyway, work is calming down a bit so I figured it was time to make a trip up to Shanghai and follow up some of the projects which I started a couple of months ago.

To be honest, I'm really not looking forward to the trip this time. My company recently made a big deal out of its hotel policy. In the past, whenever I travelled to Shanghai, I would stay at the Equatorial. It wasn't a great hotel but at least it was clean and close to the office.

Unfortunately, even the Equatorial (at just over RMB800 per night) is too good a hotel for me now. The company hotel policy expressly provides that Senior Managers and below have to stay at 3 or 4 star hotels in China and in fact, they have a list of hotels which they have corporate discounts with hence we have to stay at one of these hotels.

Instead of the Equatorial, I will be staying at Jin Jong Jin Jiang - at least, I think thats how its pronounced. I couldn't find a website for the hotel so I'm not really sure (I got laughed at for thinking that a 3 star hotel in China would have a website - so naive!). I have no idea what it will be like although I'm not expecting much (room rate of just under RMB500 per night). However, I suspect that the quality of the hotel won't be the major issue for me.

What really worries me is transportation. In the past, I used to walk to the office from the hotel and back again. However, one time, it was raining heavily so I had to take a taxi. There is a taxi queue outside the hotel so I went down and queued up there - patiently waiting for my taxi.

One hour later, I was still waiting. The problem isn't that there weren't any taxis - it was that there weren't enough taxis. Even after an hour, I still hadn't managed to get to the front of the queue.

By that time, the rain had dropped off a bit so rather than continue to wait - I just decided to walk back to the Equatorial in the rain (10 minute walk). Got back to the hotel, changed my clothes and took a shower - no big deal.

However, that option is no longer open to me. Now, I will have to continue to wait (I've been told that waiting times of 2 hours are not uncommon). And this is very likely to happen as the weather forecast for Shanghai predicts thunderstorms.

As I said, I am really not looking forward to this trip - or future ones.