Celebrating the written word

The hotel also encourages its own staff to read more as well, creating a unique kind of engagement and bonding among employees.

To do this, the hotel set up a book corner in the staff room, providing employees with popular, practical and professional books on the hospitality industry, ranging from best-selling coffee books to easy-to-read wine guides.

This small gesture has inspired reciprocal acts from employees, many of whom brought in their own reading materials, from home decor books to fashion tabloids, to share with colleagues.

The book corner has now doubled in size, as the old "tradition" has been passed down to new faces in the hotel through the years.

Aside from directly offering book choices, the Ritz-Carlton Beijing Financial Street organizes a flea market every couple of months within its Career Development Center, to raise funds to buy equipment that can read bedtime stories for the children of migrant workers who are left behind in rural areas.

Since then, hundreds and thousands of left-behind children in more than 80 boarding schools have benefited from this charity, under the Ritz-Carlton "Community Footprint" program.

Many hoteliers believe reading goes far beyond this one-day festival. To some, it is a virtue of habit and culture.

"Personally, I have always enjoyed reading, ever since I was a child," general manager of InterContinental Beijing Beichen Alexander O. Wassermann says. "Especially fairy tales and adventure books."

Having inherited the love of reading from his parents, he now tries to pass it on to his children by reading them bedtime stories whenever he has the time.