The Lowdown on Holiday Inn Beijing Hotels

Holiday Inn Beijing Hotels (more commonly known as Holiday Inn Templeof Heaven) is located nearby the Temple of Heaven. It took me about 50minutes' in a taxi to travel from Beijing International Airport to thehotel.

With my limited amount of the Chinese language, it was frustrating todirect my taxi-driver. No taxi drivers seem to know the hotel even whenI showed them the address in Chinese. My driver ended up calling histaxi buddies for advice, to no avail.

At last, he called the hotel’s front desk (thank God I had the cardwith me) and was able to get to the hotel. Even then, it was difficultfor me to get to the hotel from most places. This is probably why Itend not to stay there often due to its inconvenient location.

The lobby at Holiday Inn Beijing Hotels is large and modern. However,my room is a different story. It looks dated and average in size. Itreally needs a fresh coat of paint and new fixtures. You can get betterfurnished rooms at comparable price at other hotels.

Note: The average room rate at Holiday Inn is about US$120 per night including breakfast.

Looking on the bright side, the hotel has a fairly large indoor pooland free broadband Internet access. And that is very important to mewhen I update my website and blogs by the pool.

As for the level of English of the hotel’s staff, I felt that the deskstaff has enough English for general duties but did not seem to becompetent enough to understand business jargons. I guess this willimprove as time goes by.

For food, I enjoyed myself at the Heavenly Cafe as you can get decentfood for less than US$10. However, the hotel's dinner buffet that nightwas disappointing with a lack of variety of food. It may not be thecase always, I hope.

The saving grace is that there are plenty of good Chinese restaurantsjust right outside the hotel. So, my tip is to eat outside the hotel asyou have a wider variety and you can definitely save more money. Thereare also plenty of small shops for you to do souvenir shopping but beprepared to bargain.

No.1 Ding An Dongli, Fengtai District, Beijing.

Tel: +86 10 6762 6688