AMORE HOTEL, Baoding – Where Industry Meets Indulgence (and Somehow Nails Both)
Baoding isn’t trying to impress you. It doesn’t have the flash of Shanghai or the polished swagger of Beijing. But that’s part of its charm. Because this city (home to nearly 12 million people and sitting a casual 90 miles southwest of the capital) is where things actually get built. Properly built. Including, as it happens, one of the biggest automotive companies you may not have paid enough attention to – GWM.
GWM shifts around 1.3 million cars a year. Let that sink in, that’s serious volume. And yet, outside of China (and even in the NZ market), it still feels like a bit of an under-the-radar operator.
Its story is a classic, humble beginnings, big ambition one. Founded by Wei Deliang in 1976 as a scrappy agricultural vehicle workshop, it didn’t really hit its stride until the nephew of the founder Wei Jianjun aka Jack Wei took over in 1990 and pushed the brand into passenger cars.
Early efforts? Let’s just say “heavily inspired” by Toyota and Nissan. But by the mid-’90s, with the delightfully named “Deer” pickup, GWM started doing its own thing. Fast forward a few decades and five million global sales later, and you’ve got a privately owned automotive heavyweight listed in Hong Kong, quietly reshaping how the world looks at Chinese cars.
So what does any of this have to do with a hotel? Well Everything, actually.
Because right in the middle of this industrious, slightly underrated city (and a few hundred metres from GWM’s Head Office) sits the AMORE HOTEL, and it feels like Baoding’s way of saying, “Yeah, we do lifestyle now too.”
Located on South Chaoyang Street in Lianchi District, AMORE (part of the Love brand) isn’t trying to out-glitz the megabrands. Instead, it leans into something smarter, being exactly what this city needs right now. And as it turns out, we were one of the first groups to stay there.
You’ve got 305 smart rooms that actually feel smart (not just “we added an iPad and called it innovation”), more than 2,500 square metres of conference space that means business (literally) and four themed restaurants that go beyond the usual hotel buffet roulette.
And then there’s the curveball, a 1,300-square-metre therapeutic hot spring area. In a city known for its deep Qing Dynasty roots, a hub for renewable energy technology, and local cuisine, (particularly donkey burgers), this is where you come to switch off. It’s less “spa weekend cliché” and more “you’ve earned this.”
But the real trick AMORE pulls off is something harder to define. It’s that elusive “third space”, not quite work, not quite home, but a place where the two stop fighting each other.
What impressed me most about this brand new hotel is its underlying motoring industry theme. Step into the reception area, look up, and you are greeted to a smorgasbord of car parts, all painted white in square cubby holes – I mentally started piecing them together. The lights on the lifts are directional indicators (only vertical) and the cafe 1990 logo is an odometer about to click over to 1900.
The rooms themselves are classy and modern, and actually quite functional. Ample powerpoints, workspace, rapid internet, big TV (huge in fact) and enough light to read those valuable documents.
The shower area offers both directional and monsoon heads, with plenty of amenities. Toilet is a bonus too, electrified, heated, wash and dry for your pleasure.
The staff are attentive and the buffet style food is outstanding, they do need to learn how to pour a beer, but that will surely come in time.
The AMORE HOTEL is what happens when the city starts thinking about where those people stay, meet, eat, and unwind once they arrive. Simply put, Baoding might not shout about itself. But places like this suggest it doesn’t need to. It’s easy to see the synergy between Amore and GWM, go local, grow with more!
