Hi Everyone,

I am a new traveler here China and I am kind of worried how to get a hotel room when I go to places, what I usually do is that I book my accommodation in advance but the online options seem to be a bit limited here in China. I am going to Mengzi tomorrow, on the way to Jinping where I will join a friend who speaks some Chinese, but I need to stay in Mengzi one night and I found a few hotels on Ctrip but I know there are more. Would you reckon I book it online or just turn up, consider please that my Chinese is very limited. Does the staff in hotels speak English usually so I could just turn up and get a room?

thaanks

Just turn up. Staff in hotels usually don't speak much English but they can get you a room anyway.

If you can book online and have it all sorted before you turn up - Why wouldn't you?

You could have done it in the time it took you to start this thread.

Is there a wide range of hotels open to booking online? I don't know, have never booked a hotel online, at least not in China .

You don't need to book anywhere unless its golden week, but the rates are usually cheaper online than just showing up, especially on Chinese websites/apps. Some very small countryside hotels/guesthouses don't have any online booking.

I assume that you are already using the Engish version of ctrip, so those hotels which are not cleared to take foreigners (or don't want to bother taking them), are probably filtered out in it.

My wife once booked a hotel in Chongqing close to the airport with both of our names (me having a foreign name). The online booking was accepted, but when we showed up they said no foreigners.

I always feel safer to book in advance when travelling alone, just to have a confirmed address to go to and being able to plan ahead how to get there.

I haven't been to Sichuan in awhile, but it used to be the case that many more hotels were closed to foreigners there - even in Chengdu - than was the case in Yunnan. Provincial governments regs of some sort, I think.

Supposedly NO hotels are off limits to foreigners - Was it on here there was a link or maybe I saw it on Wechat, I can't remember.

Something to do with the computer system they must use and a hidden screen or something is where the confusion comes.

It's usually the small crappy hotels that do this, so unless that hotel is the only one in the village, it's best just to find somewhere better.

Thanks everybody for your advice, I have been looking up the hotels via C-trip/ Trip Advisor took me to a hotel on C-trip, but there is extra 20 yuan for booking online, so i don't know is it cheaper online or not ??

When I was looking at the C-trip website directly I wasn't offered this particular hotel, could that mean the no Foreigners??

Hotels, motels, guesthouses are everywhere. No reason to book beforehand.

Short story - Arrived in Lijiang and was walking to our favorite guesthouse when we saw a laowai couple with the dreaded Lonely Planet book in hand. Dazed and confused with the deer in the headlights look I asked them if they needed some help. They were looking for some off the wall place where they already made reservations.

I told them, you just passed 30 or so guesthouses but they were determined to find this one place because they already made reservations. I am not exaggerating - 2 hours later after we got into our hotel and took a shower and were ready to relax in town, we saw the same fools with their double backpacks in tow, sweating and still looking for that guesthouse. I laughed!!!!!!

If you are a pampered 4-5 star lover, they always take laowais. If you like cheap, there is always someone who will take you in. The only one who ever got rejected and had to sleep in a manger was Mary and Joseph.