DEBAO

Average hotel with some English speaking workers Good breakfast and dinner buffet served quite early (over by 7pm). Food is a hybrid of Chinese and English cuisine, the 3rd floor restaurant and 1st floor restaurants Cleanliness is average and cigarette smoke is everywhere Hotel could do with a face lift and newer lined Decent mid-range hotel

After staying in one of the great luxury hotels in a provincial city, I was badly disappointed by this hotel. It reminded me of a "good" hotel from the 1980s in the Soviet Union. Nice lobby, attentive staff, fairly modern facilities (elevators with touch pads for buttons!). But the corridors and room, by American standards, belongs in a slightly shady motel. Smell of stale cigarette smoke everywhere. Carpets brown and dirty-seeming. Low lights and low ceilings. Kind of worn furniture. Walls are thin: I could hear, in detail, the (not raucous) party going on in the adjacent room The dirty-seeming carpet in the room was really unpleasant; I was disgusted to step on it, and discovered that there were slippers provided only toward the end of my stay.

The Beijing Debao Hotel is located near the second ring road, so it is fairly close to the centre of the city. It is close to North Beijing underground railway station, allowing easy reach to most of the city's attractions. There are plenty of retail shops and food outlets nearby, bot traditional Chinese and western fast food joints. The main reason I stayed here is that it was easy walking distance to the Beijing Exhibition Centre, where I was attending a Trade Show. The room itself looked a bit old, but it was clean and quiet. A work desk was available, as was high speed wireless internet access. The room featured just about the hardest bed I have ever slept on, but I was so exhausted at the end of each day that this was not a problem! I used the laundry service, which was cheap and delivered my clothes back to the room on the same day. Breakfast in the lobby restaurant offered a choice of traditional Chinese or Western foods. In summary, the hotel is nothing fancy but the location is good and it represents value for a city that can be expensive, accommodation-wise.