Updated: March 2024.

This is a practical guide to booking accommodation in China, including how to to choose a good hotel and what to expect when staying in a hotel in China.

As a seasoned China traveller, I’ve stayed in many hotels (and hostels) around the country. There are a few differences between hotels in China and elsewhere, so here’s the low-down on what to expect.

What to Expect in a Chinese Hotel

Language Barrier

The first thing you should be prepared for is that most hotel staff won’t speak any English. This will be the case for most places in China, even in cities more frequented by international visitors like Beijing. The younger generation of Chinese people will have learnt English at school, but they still won’t be able to speak it (I mean, how good is your high school French?). Heck, I even stayed at one hostel where the receptionist had an English degree and still couldn’t speak it.

Full disclosure: I speak Mandarin Chinese, but my travel companion did not, so I saw a bit of both sides.

Usually hotel staff will get by with a translation app. I saw one (fancier) place where they had a handheld voice translation device. Staff are more likely to speak English in bigger international chain hotels, but these will obviously be more expensive. Some international youth hostels also have English-speaking staff.

Not All Hotels Accept International Travellers

Hotels need a special permit to allow foreign guests to stay, so not all hotels will accept international travellers. When you stay at a hotel, they need to register your stay with the local police station. Technically, if you stay at a private residence, e.g. friend or relative’s house, you also need to register at the police station. This is why using AirBnB isn’t advisable in China, as your hosts won’t have the required permits to allow you to stay (there’s a risk of being kicked out in the middle of the night).

Make sure to check that your accommodation accepts international travellers. Trip.com has a ‘hotel policies’ section which specifies this. You can usually tell which hotels don’t accept international travellers on Booking.com, as they’ll have ultra low ratings of 3 or 4/10.

Check-In

You’ll need to show your passport upon check-in. The hotel has to register your stay at the police station, so they will take photos of your ID page and visa page.

Hotels often ask for a deposit, usually ¥100 or so, which is returned at the end of your stay. You’ll get a receipt as proof of deposit, so make sure to keep it safe. If you can provide a Chinese phone number, they often waive the need for a deposit.

Many hotels have a business WeChat account, where you can message them for any issues with the room. WeChat actually has quite a good translate option, so you can message them in English and translate their replies.

Hotel Bathrooms in China

The bathrooms in China are set up slightly differently to Europe and North America. You’ll see a lot of public squat toilets in China, but thankfully most toilets inside hotel rooms are the same sit-down kind as back home (although very low budget places may have squat toilets). The plumbing system in most places isn’t designed to flush toilet roll, so there will be a small bin in the bathroom. Make sure to throw the toilet roll in the bin, unless you want a blocked and smelly toilet!

In a typical Chinese bathroom setup, the shower isn’t separated from the rest of the bathroom in a cubicle. That means if you have a shower, the whole bathroom floor gets wet. It takes some getting used to and I’m still not a fan. This isn’t the case in all hotels, but is something to look out for when searching for accommodation in China. Hotels in big cities, particularly higher-end ones, are more likely to have separate shower cubicles.

Most hotel rooms have private bathrooms, but with one difference: the bathroom wall is often made from glass! This seems to be a thing everywhere in China – likely because it’s cheaper to install and saves space. This can get awkward if you’re sharing a room. Look out for the ones with frosted glass or a curtain for more privacy. (Note: higher-end hotels and international youth hostels are more likely to have proper bathroom walls, as they tend to cater to more foreign guests).

Single-Use Plastic

Single-use items are everywhere in China and practically unavoidable; hotels are no different. But there are ways to reduce your carbon footprint a little if you are mindful.

Hotel room floors generally aren’t carpeted, and most hotels usually provide slippers. There will be a disposable and a reusable pair. I wouldn’t trust the reusable slippers (who knows how clean they are?), and the single-use ones are bad for the environment, so I advise bringing your own slippers or flip-flops.

Tap water in China is not drinkable (and definitely do NOT fill your kettle from the bathroom tap). You’re usually provided with a plastic bottle of water in your room on check-in. Unfortunately, there’s not really anywhere to refill your bottle – only a few places I stayed had drinking water dispensers. If you’re staying for a few days, you could buy a 5-litre bottle (1.32 gallons) of water, which slightly reduces the amount of plastic used. Restaurants do often provide free tea or hot water, so that’s another way to keep hydrated (just don’t over-caffeinate).

One good thing is that recycling seems to be widespread, and public bins are separated by recyclable and non-recyclable waste. You can get money for recycling bottles and cans, so there are plenty of trash collectors waiting to take that plastic bottle off your hands. Still, it’s better to reduce plastic usage in the first place.

How to Book Hotels in China

The best website for booking accommodation in China is hands-down Trip.com.

Trip.com is an international online travel agency, and the biggest in China (the Chinese version is called Ctrip). The parent company also owns Skyscanner. You can use Trip.com to book hotels, train tickets and flights all over the world (although I mainly use it for China). I used it for the majority of my hotel (and hostel) bookings during my big trip to China this year.

For most of my previous travels around Europe and South America I used Booking.com, but it’s not the best website to book hotels in China. Agoda is popular for travel in Southeast Asia, but the selection isn’t as good for China. There’s a much larger selection of hotels on Trip.com, and you can find cheaper deals compared with Booking.com or Agoda (both owned by the same company). Because of more users booking with Trip.com in China, the reviews are much more accurate. You’ll also see translated Chinese reviews with photos.

Booking a Hotel in CHina with Trip.com

Trip.com has both a mobile app and a website. I mainly used the app to make bookings whilst travelling, which was quite straightforward.

A good rule of thumb with Trip.com is to choose hotels with a rating of 4.5 or higher with at least a few hundred reviews. This usually ensures a decent quality of hotel. Places with fewer reviews are not necessarily bad – they may just be newly-opened, so it depends how risk-averse you are.

Make sure you take a good look through the user-submitted photos in the reviews, as they will be a more realistic representation of the hotel rooms. Also check the photos of the bathroom if you want to avoid the see-through glass walls and squat toilets. It’s a good idea to look through the most recent reviews to check for any particular issues with the hotel (such as, dare I say… bugs).

Another thing to watch out for is how easy it will be to locate the hotel itself. Some hotels are actually groups of converted flats inside residential complexes. These won’t be well-signposted, and you may need to call the owner to get directions – very difficult for non-Chinese speakers. The address will usually be something like ‘Block A Building 2 809’, or it might be labelled as ‘homestay’. There’s a function on the Trip app which allows you to open the location in your own maps app (Google / Apple / Gaode). Sometimes there will also be comments in the reviews about the location from other foreign travellers.

Check Hotel Prices for China

Booking a Hostel in China

Hostels are a great place to meet other travellers and make friends. However, in China you may struggle with the language barrier.

Hostels usually have a WeChat group thread where they post details of excursions and social events. This will be in Chinese, but the WeChat translate function is generally quite accurate. Hostel-organised trips are a great and cheap way of exploring the area.

Hostels in China generally only have single-sex (rather than mixed) dorms. These are extremely cheap and perfect for travelling China on a budget. Private rooms are also very affordable if you want some more personal space, and these often feel more like a hotel room than a hostel.

If you’re specifically looking for somewhere social with English-speaking travellers, it’s worth shopping around on Hostelworld or Agoda. For example, we stayed at a really great international hostel in Chengdu, which was listed on Hostelworld, Agoda and Booking.com (via Agoda), but not on Trip.com. But bear in mind that options for hostels in China are generally much more limited compared with, say, Southeast Asia.

Note also that all hostels listed on Trip.com are labelled as hostels, so using the ‘hostel’ filter isn’t all that helpful. When looking through the search results, you can usually tell which ones are hostels by the fact that they have dorms.

Booking a Hotel for Your Chinese Visa

Getting a visa for China generally requires you to have a full itinerary with flight and hotel bookings. But what if you want to be a bit more flexible with your itinerary? The answer is booking with free online cancellation.

Both Trip.com and Booking.com offer hotels with free cancellation. It’s usually clearly labelled as ‘free cancellation’ and you can filter by this criterion on both sites. Booking.com generally doesn’t require pre-payment for cancellable bookings, however Trip.com usually does. It’s probably meant as a deterrent to cancellation.

I’ve previously cancelled and modified bookings on both Trip.com and Booking.com without any issues. Just make sure you do it before the specified deadline date!

If you’ve got your itinerary fully planned out and just want some peace of mind whilst waiting for your visa, use Trip.com. If you’re likely to change your itinerary as you go, then use Booking.com and cancel later.

Now that you know all about how to book accommodation in China, it’s time to get out there and explore!

Check out my other China guides to help plan your trip:
Getting Around in China
6 Essential Apps for Travelling China
Getting a SIM Card for China
How to Pay in China

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