Di Jiankai, the director of the Trade Service Division of China’s Ministry of Commerce, has disclosed to the Chinese media that China will try to create 10,000 green hotels by 2012.

Of the 10,000 green hotels, 1,000 will be created in 2009, 2,000 in 2010, 3,000 in 2011 and 4,000 in 2012. These green hotels are expected to reduce water consumption by 20%, cut electricity consumption by 20%, and cut carbon dioxide emissions by 45,000 tons over four years.

Han Ming, a director of the China Hotel Association, told a recent conference that a national green hotel working commission has been established by the Ministry of Commerce, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Environmental Protection, The State-owned Assets Supervision, the Administration Commission of the State Council, the National Standards Commission, and the China Hotel Association. Han said that, from now on, five-leaf green hotels will be appraised by a national appraisal department and four-leaf and below hotels will be accredited by provincial level departments.

It is understood that the global financial crisis has had some negative effects on China’s economic development. Statistics show that in the first four months of this year, China’s accommodation and food industry achieved a revenue of CNY570.61 billion, which was an increase of 18.6% over the same period of last year, but the rate of increase declined by 5.2%. In addition the average room occupancy of high star-graded hotels in first tier cities was only 30%.

Source: China CSR (May 27, 2009)