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Discover Hangzhou with Jason Burnett, General Manager, Holiday Inn Hangzhou City Center

Jason Burnett - Holiday Inn Hangzhou City Center

Can you introduce Hangzhou as a meeting destination?

A local proverb says “God made heaven above, Hangzhou and Suzhou below”.

Hangzhou is a unique international touristic destination. Obviously, the main attractions are the Westlake, world heritage mark.

Hangzhou is very well connected to Shanghai (21 minutes) and Beijing (6 hours and half) with the express train.

Besides, Hangzhou offers a lot of fantastic venues as well as an international convention center with more than 20,000 sqm of meeting facilities.

What are the main attractions of the Holiday Inn Hangzhou City Center?

Holiday Hangzhou Inn City Centre is located right in the CBD area (Central Business District Area). It is extremely easy to get in the hotel. Only five minutes fare to train station and Westlake.

The hotel has been fully renovated in October 2010 and offers comprehensive meeting and conference facilities and can accommodate up to 370 guests in theater style and 300 persons in banquet style. Furthermore, the hotel provides designated staff to assist meeting planners throughout their event.

Hotel offers no less than 3 food and beverage outlets Aroma Coffee Shop all day dining, Spring Garden Chinese restaurant, Oak Grill American Steak House) as well as gym and fitness facilities.

Can you describe your role as the hotel general manager?

As a General Manager I have to look after day to day operations of the hotel and place the hotel on the market, asides I am also in charge of the future of the hotel.

I believe that the most important responsibility of a General Manager is to develop and improve the skills of team to deliver high quality service and ensure guest experience.

Having worked in Australia, USA and Thailand what are the main challenges you face in China?

I am very much loving the city of Hanghzou.

Having worked in many locations around the world, I would say that every location is unique and presents unique challenges. The way of doing business in USA is very different from the way of doing business in Thailand or China.
Being in Westerner working in China the biggest challenge is to understand the culture.

According to my experience, the best way to embrace a culture is to learn the language, which I did when I was working in Thailand and which I do since I arrived in China.

What is your best memory since you have started working in the hotel?

I remember being in Hangzhou for only two weeks, walking for the first time to Westlake and getting lost on my way.

As I was trying to find the directions on a map in Chinese, an old man kindly came to me to help. Despite he was speaking no English at all, and I was not speaking a word of Chinese, he finally managed to put me back in the right direction.

I feel that people in Hangzhou – a city of 7.5M citizen - have the sense of hospitality, they easily look after people, which is part of the culture.

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Looking for meeting space?

Send your request and get a free quote today
or contact +86(21)63515339