Chinese hotels to boast about

THE DONUT SHAPED HOTEL:

The horseshoe-shaped Sheraton Huzhou Hot Spring Resort seeps into Lake Taihu, and makes it look all the more ethereal. The structure joins at the bottom, underwater, making it a complete O design. A new-build completed only a few months ago, the hotel almost mirrors the Chinese junk boats that sail across the lake. There’s even a yacht dock in case you want to arrive by water. This otherworldly 27-storey hotel also has 40 hot springs for guests to use in the spa village.

THE MOST SPIRITUAL HOTEL:

The most spiritual is all perspective, but the St Regis Lhasa Resort has another record that is harder to debate. It may well be one of the world’s highest hotels, clocking in at almost four thousand metres above sea level. You must book the Everest Suite here, which looks across to the Tibetan icon of Potala Palace – the residence of the Dalai Lama before his exile.

THE OLD SCHOOL GLAMOUR HOTEL:

It may only date from 2011, but the Waldorf Astoria in Shanghai feels like you have stepped back to the Hollywood of yesteryear. For guests, the pillow menu caters for side, stomach and back sleepers, while in the bathroom there’s a TV built into the mirror and the toilet is automatic. The hotel’s Long Bar, menwhile, harks back to the days when it was the Shanghai Club, a colonial drinking establishment.

THE VERTIGINOUS POOL HOTEL:

Do you fancy swimming laps in a glass-bottomed pool 24 floors above the hustle of Shanghai? The Holiday Inn Shanghai Pudong Kangqiao has such a pool, which juts out of the building, allowing pedestrians to see the silhouette of a swimmer in the blue above. The pool is cantilevered and it is the closest you will get to swimming in mid-air. A high altitude dunk would have to be one of the main reasons to stay here.

THE MOST MICHELIN-STARRED HOTEL:

Hong Kong’s Four Seasons hotel boasts not just one, but two restaurants that have earned the cult status of three Michelin stars. It is also the only hotel in China to have even one Michelin trifecta. Lung King Heen is a Cantonese restaurant and boasts the first Chinese chef ever to achieve three Michelin stars. He has held onto the accolade for five consecutive years. French restaurant Caprice is also found at the Four Seasons and it has well and truly earned its three stars.

THE SHOW-STOPPING SUITE:

You will need five digits of currency per night to stay at the Presidential Suite of the Intercontinental Hotel in Hong Kong. So, what do you get in exchange for the best part of a house deposit? There’s an infinity pool that blurs watery edges with Victoria Harbour, two butlers on 24-hour stand-by, toilet seats that open when you walk into the bathroom and your own gym. And that’s just the beginning.

Advertise with us

Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au