By LI Rujia
Hotel rooms in China are harder to come by than ever during the upcoming May Day break. So hard to come by in fact, that one hotel rolled out an offer of “extra beds” in its lobby on Monday.
Sleep like a security guard
The Paruisi Hotel is an economy hotel in Zhejiang Province’s Taizhou, a city with not that much touristic appeal. The Paruisi is fully booked for the holiday, but some bright spark offered customers a night on a sofa in reception for 99 yuan (US$14). For that, you get to sleep on a studio couch in the lobby, plus free midnight snacks for two.
The option soon went viral on Chinese social media and was just as soon taken down by the hotel. It’s not clear if it was a hoax from the start. Jiemian News called the receptionist of the hotel on Tuesday and was told the hotel didn’t know anything about it.
But when local media Hangzhou Daily called, the hotel said two bookings had been made and they were preparing an “upgrade” for the customers. “We can’t really put them on couches, can we?” they said.
On a regular day, a room in the Paruisi cost around 200 yuan, but during the May Day break, even the cheapest room is 400 yuan per night.
Taizhou is not even a popular destination. Hotel and flight ticket bookings on online travel agencies have already surpassed those of 2019 with bookings this May Day expected to be ten times those of last year. On Meituan, searches for tourist destinations have tripled compared with 2019.
Not to be left behind, hotel prices have taken a vacation in the stratosphere. Prices of hotels in downtown Chengdu over the May Day break have quadrupled and all are sold out.
