The global luxury hotel management company FRHI, which operates more than 110 hotels under the Raffles, Fairmont and Swissotel brands, plans to open 10 hotels in China in the next five years, doubling its presence here.

After establishing a presence in first-tier cities with all three brands in Beijing and two properties in Shanghai, the hotel group's next step is "to push into the second- and third-tier cities", said Foued El Mabrouk, vice-president of FRHI Hotels and Resorts' operations in China.

These cities, such as Changsha, Suzhou, Zhengzhou and Nanning, are secondary but increasingly important, El Mabrouk said.