Updated July 29, 2020
How do you book a hotel/hotel in China? Are the Chinese hotels/hostels safe for foreigners? How about the language problems? Payment options?
I’m sure if you are travelling to China, you are going to have myriads of questions regarding booking a suitable hotel/hostel in China.
I am totally with you- finding accommodation can be tricky when you suck at the local language skills. In fact, I have myself gotten into accommodation troubles while travelling in China.
Let me answer some of your queries regarding hotel booking in China.
How To Book A Hotel/Hostel In China?
I have travelled to a good number of Chinese cities, spread over the mainland China. I have used different hotel booking services, and I feel Booking.com is a good choice to book hotels in China.
What Are Local Sites/Apps To Book Chinese Hotels?
I have tried Ctrip.com and Qunar.com, both are fine. However, most of the time, they’d require you to provide a Chinese ID number, locally known as Shen Fen Zheng (身份证). However, it seems that only the Chinese citizens and permanent residence (PR) holders have this Shen Fen Zheng. That means, most of the foreigners in China don’t have this thing called Shen Fen Zheng. That’s why, you’d better use Booking.com.
You may also want to try Trip.com, the international arm of Ctrip (available in English).
What Are The Best Hotels/Hostels In China?
I’d often stay with the following hotels, and would recommend staying with them:
- Hanting Express (汉庭酒店)
- Jinjing Inn (锦江之星)
- Home Inn (如家酒店)
These hotels have branches in most of the Chinese cities. You can easily find them on Booking.com. However, some of their branches may not allow foreigners (discussed shortly) to stay despite confirmed bookings.
Hotel Expenses?
Well, for the aforementioned hotels, usually, I’d pay between RMB 150-200/night. That said, the expense would, of course, vary based on many factors (you can check the prices on Booking.com).
How To Make Payments At A Chinese Hotel/Hostel?
Most of the time, I’d make hotel payments using AliPay (支付宝) or WeChat (微信支付) directly at the hotel reception (I prefer to book hotels that allow payment at the counter).
Moreover, I live in China and do have a local bank account. My bankcard is linked to both AliPay and WeChat Pay. Sure, it’s convenient for me to use AliPay/WeChat.
A few times, I made cash payments, and I am confident that most of the Chinese hostels would accept cash payments as well.
Not to mention, most of the big hotel chains or branded hotels would accept payment by credit card (you may want to confirm in advance with your hotel/hostel though).
In any case, if you are booking a hotel using Booking.com, you don’t need to worry about paying at the counter (unless you suddenly decide to extend hotel booking and wish to pay at the reception—then cash is ok as well).
Are The Chinese Hotels Safe?
Yeah, I didn’t have any safety problems in China. All the hotels I booked were usually safe. Cleanliness, noise, smoking, etc. could be an issue at some of the hotels, but safety has never been an issue.
Add your hostel guy in WeChat!
Once you are the hotel, don’t forget to add the receptionist in your WeChat. This will ensure you can message them anytime about your stay extension plans. You can make payments as well (via WeChat transfer).
You can add them before reaching hotel as well. Keep in mind that in China over 90% people use WeChat for texting. You can ask your hotel to provide their WeChat contact via email.
Pamphlets In Hotel Room
Some hotels would put pamphlets in your room for massage/sexual services. I have seen pamphlets in almost all parts of China. 🙂 You can get full service for RMB 1000.
Should You Book A Hotel Or Hostel?
It depends.
Generally, if you wish to bring a new guest to your bedroom, and have sex, the hotels are better as the receptionist would be professional. They’d let the guest in after the ID is checked (the ID is not always checked). Moreover, the receptionist would work about 8hrs/day, you can bring three guest in 24 hours and who cares about it!
The hostels in China are often run by the families. The same couple of people would be at the counter virtually 24 hours. They’d be careful about the guests. It could be embarrassing to being an outside guest to your bedroom (forget about bringing 2-3 guests). And how about the noise? 🙂
That said, meeting a suitable guest in the hostel has a much higher chance. However, it’s also worth mentioning that the Chinese girls usually travel in groups. Even if you meet a girl in your hostel, the chances of she coming to your bedroom “alone” are not that great. Your probability of immediate fuck are rather low.
Foreigners Not Allowed?
What you must know before confirming a hotel booking in China?
During my previous trips, every once in a while, something unique would happen: I’d book the hotel on Booking.com, booking would be confirmed, I print out the receipt, head to the hotel according to my travel plan.
You know what? When I’d reach the hotel reception counter, the receptionist would ruthlessly tell me: “Foreigners are not allowed to stay in this hotel”. Then, I’d wonder why the fuck I was allowed to book this hotel/hostel in the very first place?
Obviously, I’d get pissed off.
However, you can’t really argue with the receptionist. Why? Because you don’t speak Chinese.
This shit happened to be about 5 times in China, then I found the solution.
Well, let me explain the problem with a foreigner booking hotel in China: There seems to be a centralized database of foreigner entering/leaving China (obviously). The database provides a record of some basic information about you, such as:
- Date of entry/exit into the mainland China
- Visa validity
- Nationality
- Passport number
It turns out that some of the hotels/hostels have access to this database, however, not all the Chinese hotels can access this database. If the hotel can’t see the database, they won’t let you stay. As simple as that.
In fact, this is not a problem from the Chinese administration. It turns out, in China, the hotels are required to apply to the local administration in order to be able to access the centralized database. However, the lazy asses wouldn’t apply for it.
Moreover, most of the online hostel/hotel booking sites don’t take enough pain to inform us beforehand.
That’s how I have gotten into this trouble, again and again.
The solution?
Here are a couple of solutions:
- Check out the reviews of the hotel. If you see, at least a couple of, reviews written by the foreigners, then the foreigners are allowed to stay at the given hotel.
- Alternatively, find the contact number of the hotel, talk to the receptionist and ask them:
- Zài nǐ de jiǔdiàn wàiguó rén kěyǐ bù kěyǐ?
- 在你的酒店外国人可以不可以？
- At your hotel, foreigners can or cannot?
If you hear kěyǐ (可以, can), then this hotel allows foreigners to stay. If you hear bù kěyǐ (不可以), then the foreigners are NOT allowed to stay. Simple enough!
Make sure that you don’t pay for the booking until you are sure that this hotel allows foreigners.
How is your experience with hotel booking China? Did you ever get into any trouble?