China’s hotel industry development has always been closely linked with China’s political and economic evolution. As one of the major parts of China’s tourism industry, the star-rated hotel industry became China’s most prominent signifier of the reform and opening-up policy in the early 1980s. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, economy hotels grew rapidly under the influence of marketization in the industry, driving the development of the mid-scale market and the booming of the Chinese hotel market. This chapter first reviews the three stages and characteristics of the development of China’s hotel industry; it then analyses the characteristics of the industry’s transformation in scale, structure, performance, hotel groups, branding and internationalization, as well as the new emerging types of industry in the new era after 2017. Finally, a theoretical framework of path creation in the process of China’s hotel industry development is provided, showing future opportunities and challenges.
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