Architecture and Design

The China Business Network: URBN Hotel & Resorts

Christine Lu of The China Business Network brings us another great podcast about URBN Hotels & Resorts, an eco-friendly boutique hotel and resort company based in Shanghai. The company’s first luxury hotel, a 28-room property catered to design-focused “urban world travelers,” bills itself as being China’s first carbon neutral hotel.

URBN Hotels’ vision is to expand its concept to other cities in China so that people can have unique experiences reflecting the diversity of the destinations to which they travel. There are plans to develop 20 URBN boutique Hotels & resorts in tourist and business cities throughout the country in next 3 years. The company is negotiating on sites in Beijing, Hangzhou, Dalian, and Suzhou in the immediate future. Continuing to rehabilitate existing structures and growing green will be essential to URBN’s strategy even as the size of the hotels increase to 50 to 70 rooms.

The entrepreneurs behind the concept, Scott Barrack and Jules Kwan, are primarily dedicated to luxury real estate investment and development (they co-founded spacedevelopment, responsible for the fancy serviced apartments of innshanghai, as well as the high-end showroom, Torana House), but recently, both businessmen have become increasingly attracted to green construction and social entrepreneurship.

For example, the hotel in Shanghai uses recycled wood and brick reclaimed from old Shanghai houses that are currently being destroyed in light of the country’s rapid development. “One of the key problems in construction in China is that it’s always built as fast as possible and as cheap as possible,” according to Kwan. He says that green construction may require more money up front, but eventually, the overall running costs are much lower. “Economically, it’s a better decision.”

There’s also the issue of labor rights and regulations. Often times, Kwan says, constructions sites in China are filled by thousands of migrant workers who are not held to the same protection and safety standards that many employees enjoy in Western countries.

“When we look at green and sustainable developments, we look to how to make a project work economically,” Kwan says. “Also, it’s very important, that as the world moves into the future, we have to start finding better ways to build. It’s definitely possible. The beauty of it is, if it’s done int he right way, it’s actually a better business decision, so everyone wins.”

Thanks again to Christine, for continuing to cover China’s business scene, as well as for inspiring me to develop ResponsibleChina.com

Download her full podcast here.

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