Cashing in: Chinese hotels ‘almost double’ room rates over student demand to stay near gaokao venues
China’s gaokao, the notoriously demanding national exams that determine which university the country’s high school graduates can attend, has sparked a boom in hotel-room rates near exam venues, with some reaching thousands of yuan a night, mainland media reports.
To ensure their children had a good rest during the exams – which started on Tuesday and last two to three days – mainland parents were prepared to pay exorbitant charges for finely positioned hotel rooms that were quiet and had good feng shui, the news outlet China Economic Net reported.
At a hotel close to the country’s elite High School Affiliated to Renmin University of China, rooms named “Gaokao Zhuangyuan”– essentially referring to the person achieving the highest exam marks – cost up to 2,551 yuan (HK$3,000) a night from June 7 to 8, when the exams were held.
Despite the prohibitive price, the Gaokao Zhuangyuan rooms were snapped up by some parents two months ago as they believed the name sounded “auspicious”.
Yet the cost of the same room was only 1,385 yuan for a night’s stay five days before the start of the gaokao.
Cheaper rooms, in particular those at hotels close to some top high schools in Beijing, were also popular and fully booked, the report said.
More parents preferred to book expensive rooms, in the most sought-after places located in quiet areas with favourable feng shui – a Chinese system for deciding the best position of a building and the objects inside it, which Chinese people believe will help to bring them good luck.
“The person taking an exam who stayed in this room last year was admitted to [Beijing’s renowned] Tsinghua University,” a hotel employee in the city of Qingdao, in the eastern Shandong province, was quoted as saying as she offered a “Zhuangyuan” room that she described as “both quiet and auspicious”.
