A Study On Hotel Company’s International Expansion And Its Development In China

With the deepening of economic globalization and the vigorous development of tourism industry, international hotel company covers over half of hotels all around the world. International expansion becomes the inevitable choice for hotel companies to seek more rapid development. The international expansion of hotel companies has become a remarkable phenomenon of tourism economy in this new century. The traditional research on the international expansion of hotel companies is mainly based on the economics and management, but less on geography. The international expansion of hotel companies, with distinct geographical attributes, means that it has broken through the border of one country or one region, and get into another country or region for further developing. The current research on the spatial law of hotel companies’international expansion is lack of a throughout study and detailed explanation, which is remained to be strengthened.China plays an increasingly important role in international expansion of hotel companies, especially after the financial crisis, the international hotels of developed country are brewing a new round of expansion strategies in China. The research on the spatial law of international hotels’development in China and their location factors can help us coping with the expansion of international hotels in China.The research on the international expansion of hotel companies and the development of international hotels in China is helpful with deeper understanding of hotel companies and spatial law of their international expansion. The study exerts the theoretical guiding significance on the internationalization of tourism and service. At the same time, the research also provides some conclusions based on the perspective of geography, enriching the contents of the research in this field. Besides, understanding the spatial law of international hotels’development in China is necessary for our native hotels to compete against them. At the same time, in order to realize the strategy of becoming a leading tourism country, China should develop its own international hotel companies, promote and expand the transnational operation, which need to be supported by the research on international expansion of hotel company and the evolution of space as well as the location choice of international hotels in China. Therefore, the research in this paper is helpful for Chinese native hotel companies to compete against international hotels in market and provide some suggestion and guidance for implementing transnational operation strategy.Based on the above-mentioned research objects, the article starts with a literal review of the international expansion of hotel companies and its development in China. According to the research approach’theoretical basis-questing law-empirical investigations’and taking the top10global hotel companies and main foreign hotels in China as the study subject, the article discusses the international expansion of hotel companies, spatial law and effect factors for the development of overseas hotel companies in China. The article focuses on three issues:(1) what are the spatial evolution characteristics of hotel companies’international expansion and what does its current spatial pattern like?(2) What are the factors affecting the location choice of hotel companies’international expansion and which factors are essential?(3) How about the spatial evolution characteristics of international hotels’development in China? Which factors affecting their location choice and if the factors discussed above have been reflected in the process? For answering these three issues, the article is processing with eight chapters and the content is as following:The first chapter is the introduction part which provides the background, the significance, the method, the study object, the content, the research thought, the article structure and the main innovative potions. It also summarizes the related literatures at home and abroad.The second chapter elaborates the basic theories. From the perspective of economic geography and international investments, the article carries out its research based on service location theory, enterprise space expansion theory, relationship between regional economic development theory, the eclectic theory of international production and the location advantage theory. The applicability of the above theory in the study on the international expansion of hotel company is discussed in this paper because of the particularity of the hotel industry.The third chapter is about the basic understanding of international hotel companies’expansion, including the definition, the division of historic stages of hotel companies’international expansion, basic conditions, main forms and the motivation of expansion.The fourth chapter is a study on spatial evolution characteristics of hotel companies’ international expansion. It mainly discusses from two aspects: intercontinental and national. The study made a comparative analysis of the issue respectively from the perspective of the United States, Britain and France, measuring the characteristic quantificationally by mathematical model. It can be observed that the center of gravity of international expansion of hotel company shifts to Asia, transfer process displays a characteristic which is the diffusion shifted from contagious diffusion to the mixture of contagious diffusion and hierarchical diffusion. Spatial evolution displays a characteristic which is homogeneous development with multicenter, spreading from the core region to the hinterland. The developed countries and emerging market countries presents a characteristic of diversity development.The fifth chapter is a study on the spatial distribution of international expansion of hotel company from three aspects:intercontinental, national and urban. The study analyzed spatial distribution of international hotels’expansion abroad by mathematical models and GIS spatial analysis tools, and introduced the spatial distribution from the level of city with world city theory. It can be noticed that the spatial distribution of international hotel is generally disperse and relatively concentrated. International hotels are mainly distributed in some developed countries in Europe and America, and emerging economies of Asia and central&South America. They tend to locate in world cities, urban agglomeration, cities with stronger economy, cities in developed countries and emerging market countries.The sixth chapter is a study on location choice of hotel companies’international expansion. It refers to the model construction, the summarization, selection and measure of the influencing factors of the location choosing of hotel companies’ international expansion, the refining of fundamental factors for location choosing, and some discussion on each factor. It can be found that the scale of inbound tourism, the scale of foreign direct investment, the scale of economic aggregate, the development level of economy, the geographical and cultural factor are the fundamental factors of location selection of hotel companies’international expansion.The seventh chapter is mainly about the international hotels development in China. It discussed the development history of international hotel in China, the type of hotel, the motivation of expansion and operational forms, focusing on the empirical research on spatial evolution, spatial distribution and factors for location choosing of international hotel in China. International hotels in China concentrate in the Bohai Bay area, the Pearl River delta and Yangtze River delta, and the quantity decreases successively from east to west. The density of international hotels is rising in provinces in central region. The overseas upscale hotels represent a phenomenon of "central sunken". Mid-Sale hotels tend to shift from the west to the central regions. International hotels mainly distribute in cities with stronger economy, especially in the first-tier cities and cities in three top urban agglomeration. However, international hotels are expanding to second-tier cities and its spatial distribution is shifting from disequilibrium to equilibrium conversion. The number of inbound tourists is the leading factor which affects the location choice of international hotels, and the number of scenic spots in AAAA-class (and above) tourist areas is also taken into consideration. With the accelerating expansion of international hotels in China, the market demand plays a more and more important role in the location choice of international hotels’expansion in China but gives a less impact on the scenic spots supply, so the motive of occupying the market gets more and more evident. The development of international hotels in China is in line with the conclusions in the fourth, fifth, sixth chapter.The final chapter includes conclusion and prospect, consisting of the main research results and future research direction in the field.The innovative points in this article:(1) The article depicts the spatial process and spatial distribution of hotel companies’international expansion. The existing research is too macroscopic with underdeveloped systematicness, strong subjectivity and weak spatial analysis. The article draws the spatial process and spatial distribution of hotel companies’ international expansion from three aspects:intercontinental, national and urban. The research includes the macroscopic analysis of global spatial evolution of hotel companies’international expansion as well as the microscopic analysis of the spatial evolution in specific countries. It also adopts a series of mathematical models to measure the spatial evolution characteristics and spatial distribution of hotel companies’international expansion, which has strengthened the scientificity. The research systematically depicts the spatial process and spatial distribution of hotel companies’international expansion, which can rarely be founded in the previous research.(2) The article proposes the fundamental factors for the location choice of hotel companies’international expansion. The existing research on location choice of hotel companies’international expansion is trivial and subjective because of the lack of mathematical model. The article makes an objective evaluation about the location choice factors for hotel companies’ international expansion, which has strengthened the research objectivity. Based on this, the author concluded five fundamental factors for the location choice of hotel companies’ international expansion by integrating the existing research results.(3) The article deepens the understanding of the spatial law of international hotel’s development in China. The systematically discussion on the development of international hotels in China can be counted as the main research achievement. There are three highlights in this article:the first one is a discovery about the "central sunken" phenomenon existing in foreign upscale hotels; the second highlight is discovering the trend of foreign mid-scale hotels shifting from the west to the central regions; the third highlight that the number of inbound tourists come to be the leading factor which affects the location choice of international hotels, and the number of scenic spots in AAAA-class tourist areas (and above) is also taken into consideration, the market demand plays a more and more important role in the location choice of international hotels’ expansion in China but gives a less impact on the scenic spots supply.(4) The article enriches the methodology system of the research on hotel companies’international expansion. The previous research on hotel companies’ international expansion was mainly based on economics and management. This article starts with a perspective of the geography, analyzing the law of hotel companies’ international expanding by spatial analysis, then makes a frequent use of geography models and some related formulas, repeatedly adopts the GIS spatial analysis tools and maps, which make the research more visual and graphic.