Hotels in Shanghai and Jiangsu open their doors to students studying online

One week after schools in Shanghai switched to online teaching due to an ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, several high-end hotels in the city launched special services catering to the potential demand for quiet e-learning rooms.

On Wednesday, the five-star Mandarin Oriental Pudong, located on the banks of the Huangpu River, announced its "Studycation with MO" service, which includes a room with meals for individual students age 7 to 16 to study online from Monday to Friday, supervised by designated hotel staff members.

Cecilia Yang, the hotel's director of marketing communications, said many parents have called asking for details of the service－which costs 5,900 yuan ($927)－and the first student guests will check in on Monday.

"Many parents complained about having no time to supervise their children's studies at home, as they have to go to work," Yang said.

"If parents cannot accompany their children, our senior staff members will supervise them, but we do not provide study materials, computers or a tutoring service.

"We can customize daily meals and dropping off and collection times according to individual needs, but a guardian must be present if a student wants to stay in the hotel overnight."

Other upmarket hotels, including the Andaz Xintiandi, Hyatt Regency Shanghai Global Harbor, and Novotel Shanghai Hongqiao, have launched similar services, with prices ranging from 2,000 yuan to 6,000 yuan.

Frederick Wong, vice-president of sales, Asia Pacific, for Hyatt Hotels Corp, said, "Recently, many office buildings and schools in Shanghai have been closed, or staff have been advised to work from home, so we launched this student companion service to help our guests balance work and family needs at this special time."

According to online travel agency Ctrip, similar services for students have been launched by some hotels in Nanjing and Suzhou, Jiangsu province, where on Wednesday and Thursday the local governments ordered school lessons to be suspended.

On Thursday, a Ctrip promotional poster for e-learning rooms listed more than 50 hotels in Shanghai and Jiangsu that have introduced services for students, such as printing study materials, the provision of three meals per day, and a customized monitoring schedule.

However, some observers are not attracted by such services.

Industry insider Li Linjia told the online media outlet Lvjie News, "It is just marketing hype, because those guests who have the money can simply hire a tutor instead."

Zhao Huanyan, a hospitality analyst at Huamei Consulting, said the diversification of services by hotels was prompted by the pandemic, which has disrupted normal operations for many of them in the past two years.

The average revenue for every available room at five-star hotels in Shanghai is now just 64 percent of the pre-pandemic level, Zhao said.

"Therefore, hotels have come up with other means, including this 'studycation' service, to make up for the business travelers that they lost due to the pandemic," he said.

"But their management teams should be very careful and adhere to the government's pandemic prevention protocols and offline tutoring policies."