In China, Marco Polo Hotels will 'gamble.'

Marco Polo Hotels has devised an aggressive expansion plan in China, despite hurdles such as China's slowing development and anti-corruption campaign. villas in Doha

The corporation will soon introduce a new hotel brand that will elevate the chain from a four-star to a five-star status. It's a risky move at a time when most high-end hotel chains are expanding in the country.

Instead of Shanghai and Beijing, the company will concentrate its efforts in China on second-tier, smaller locations that it believes are neglected by the rising business and domestic travel crowd.

Marco Polo Hotels' president, Eric Waldburger, states, "We are [a] Chinese firm, we are a local firm." "This is where we call home."

The company's portfolio will double in the next five years as a result of the expansion. The Wharf (Holdings) Ltd., one of Hong Kong's largest landlords and developers, employs Marco Polo to manage its hotels. Five of the new hotels will be part of a larger Wharf project that will include offices, residential buildings, and retail. It expects that by allowing visiting executives to stay in the hotel and residents to buy at the mall, it will be able to attract a captive audience.

This year, the company plans to open hotels in Changzhou and Chengdu, China, as well as Manila, Philippines. Next year, properties in Wuxi and Tianjin will open, followed by Chongqing and Changsha in 2016.

Wharf would not specify how much it was investing in the hotels or how much each bed would cost. It did, however, claim to have spent at least HK$100 billion ($13 billion) on the mainland in the previous five years.

Beijing's crackdown on excessive spending by party officials, who frequently staged expensive banquets at high-end hotels and restaurants, is one of the key obstacles. Many officials are now being investigated, if not prosecuted, for waste and corruption as a result of such spending. Marco Polo's hotels have suffered a 10% drop in occupancy as a result of the austerity measures.

The company intends to stay competitive in a congested market by focusing on smaller, underdeveloped cities and opening smaller hotels in the 200-room range. It also intends to offer more relaxed, unscripted service through its five-star brand than more regulated five-star chains, where many of the staff-guest interactions are effectively scripted from the hotel's perspective.

The five-star hotels are also meant to be fashionable. "With the product, we're going to make a very strong fashion statement," Waldburger says. He wants to hire employees from a variety of industries who can interact with hotel guests in a natural way. "We want to train the personnel from the ground up, without the bad practices that we don't like from other businesses," he adds.

After working at the Mandarin Oriental, Ritz-Carlton, and Harbour Plaza hotels, Waldburger accepted the position in mid-2012.

Marco Polo has yet to reveal the brand, but expects to do so by the end of the year. To gain traction, it wants to tempt consumers not only with the novelty of a new name, but also with incentives such as lower restaurant food and drink prices, or lower hotel rates.

""You need to generate volume in your outlets," Waldburger adds. "You need to hit the ground running and make that brand stay." Even if you sell a glass of wine for half price and it takes you six months to a year to get to where you want to be, it is necessary: to ensure that you attract a crowd."