Protests at hotel see guests moved
Print Edition
CROWNE Plaza Century Park Shanghai is moving guests out and has suspended bookings after being caught up in a dispute between the hotel building owners and rental company.
Dozens of men claiming to be employees of the Shanghai Hailong Real Estate Co showed up at the hotel on Sunday, locked the gates and said guests could not stay there, said hotel management.
They are said to have put up notices and sat in the lobby cafe with their feet on tables talking loudly until police arrived after midnight.
Yesterday a group of people claiming to be Hailong employees and their families occupied the lobby area.
When Shanghai Daily went to the hotel yesterday afternoon there were about 30 people in the lobby, including adults sitting, chatting and playing cards, and children playing with cushions on the ground.
About 80 percent of the hotel’s 319 rooms had been occupied before Sunday, but this dropped to 20 percent, said Ada Wu, assistant to the general manager.
“We suffered more than 180,000 yuan (US$29,000) of losses on Sunday alone and more are expected in the coming days,” she added.
She said that the hotel began informing guests of the disturbance on Sunday and asking if they would like to move to other hotels.
Arrange alternatives
“We helped customers arrange alternative accommodation with one of our sister hotels,” she said.
“Meanwhile, we have suspended bookings.”
Shanghai Hailong Real Estate Co co-owns the building on Minsheng Road with Irish investors.
Wu said the InterContinental Hotels Group has been authorized by Wenzhou Topsun Group Co to run the Crowne Plaza since 2008.
Topsun has been accused of not paying rent for five months, leading to hardship among Hailong staff.
But a Topsun employee said it stopped paying rent recently because they found Hailong lacked legal authorization.
The two parties are now engaged in lawsuits.
Wu said bookings will only resume once the dispute is resolved.
Other Crowne Plaza hotels in the city are unaffected.
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