A minimum membership fee of 100,000 RMB — this is how boutique hotels operate

    Thanks to a light drizzle, the entire city of Hangzhou is bathed in a fresh and elegant mist. Hidden by the side of Bailu Bridge, Hidden in West Lake * Early Moon Mountain also exudes a tranquil and transcendent charm in the rain.

    Born in June 2011, though just a three-year-old “infant,” Hidden has garnered significant favor among investors in the hotel market. Regarding this, Yang Shibing, Vice President of the group, offered an explanation: aligning with the development trend of boutique hotels, identifying the right management model, positioning the product accurately, assembling the right team, and most importantly, ensuring every project turns a profit.

    Yang Shibing: I believe Hidden truly combines the right timing, location, and people, enabling it to precisely target a niche market at this stage. This niche market is one that both domestic and international investors — including some major hotel groups currently operating — are very optimistic about — the boutique hotel sector, which also represents a future trend.

    “It’s time to go into seclusion, even if only for a few days. Life is so beautiful, and it’s so short.” This is Hidden Hotels’ slogan and the world it strives to create.

    Yang Shibing: Hidden aims to build a parallel world — a hidden realm apart from reality. We want to create such a distinctive hidden-world concept, and first and foremost, from a product design perspective, it must align with the consumption habits of vacationers. For example, when a family stays here, how should the elderly spend their time at Hidden? How about the kids? Or couples? So based on these habits, we’ve arranged activities for the elderly such as fishing, jogging, and practicing tai chi; for kids, every Hidden resort hotel has indoor and outdoor play areas, offering them mentally stimulating indoor games as well as outdoor splash pools. We also organize kids' activity competitions outdoors — for instance, gathering children from families staying here for a shuttlecock kicking contest or a checkers tournament — creating an engaging atmosphere. This ensures that whether they’re elderly, adults, or kids, everyone at Hidden can truly unwind, completely disconnecting from the outside world for a few days and enjoying this relaxing experience.

    In fact, as early as the beginning of the 21st century, boutique hotels began to be introduced to China. Over the years, people have continuously debated what constitutes a boutique hotel and what elements define it: luxury, design, individuality, or something else? Yang Shibing’s words undoubtedly point in a direction: Hidden is dedicated to building a lifestyle where the entire Hidden hotel serves as a vacation destination, allowing everyone who stays here to fulfill both their spiritual and physical needs. This may well be the future trend for boutique hotels.

    Those living in the world of Hidden possess high standards, quality, prestige, and income. They are affluent individuals with refined tastes, referred to as the “Joyful Hidden Tribe.” Here, lifetime membership requires a fee of 500,000 RMB, while general platinum members must pay 100,000 RMB. To the average person, such high fees might seem outlandish, yet in reality, the loyal “Joyful Hidden Tribe” membership has already reached over 5,000 people.

    Yang Shibing: When promoting memberships, Hidden doesn’t just see them as discount cards or consumption incentives. Instead, we integrate financial value-added services and personalized client offerings into the membership benefits.

    For instance, why does Hidden’s membership card combine with financial appreciation? Because for a 500,000 RMB membership fee, our clients, after paying this amount, will receive a certain percentage returned to them annually. Of course, the return isn’t in cash — it comes in the form of Hidden vacation packages.

    Also, as I mentioned earlier, Hidden offers unique customization services. We tailor your itinerary or arrangements according to your membership requirements. Once you provide your plans to Hidden, we’ll create a distinctive vacation package specifically for you. This is a crucial element of what makes boutique hotels special and personalized — and Hidden integrates this into its overall membership system. This includes time-share vacations, where we can design a relatively long-term vacation itinerary that allows exchanges across any of Hidden’s hotels for a time-share vacation experience.

    Additionally, our membership isn’t limited to individual members. Hidden also offers distinctive owner membership cards and corporate shared plan membership cards. Under the corporate shared plan, for example, each villa owned by a business can have its membership reserved in advance. If a company wants to hold an event or party for a week, Hidden will reserve the villa or space exclusively for them. This way, they can host press conferences, parties, or receptions with Hidden taking care of everything, saving on decoration and operational costs, all while enjoying prestige — because Hidden’s products are high-end. In this aspect, the corporate shared plan is something other hotels simply can’t replicate.

Also, there’s the owner membership card. With Hidden’s owner membership card, we primarily collaborate with tourism and real estate developers. Property owners can entrust their properties to Hidden for management. In this setup, Hidden shares profits with the property owners. This gives them a vacation spot and allows them to generate returns during idle periods.

    The biggest advantage is that as a property owner, buying a villa means having vacation access nationwide. What does this mean? When Hidden partners with property owners, after taking back the property, it typically reserves one month of vacation time for the owner. This month can be redeemed across any of Hidden’s hotels. So buyers of tourism real estate not only gain investment returns but also own a villa they can use for vacations around the country.

    Although this membership system may not have as large a member base as other hotels, it undoubtedly holds its own unique advantages.

    Yang Shibing: For small boutique resort hotels like ours, customer loyalty is actually very high. Unlike budget hotels, where low prices greatly influence customer choices and create strong price sensitivity.

    But for higher-end hotels like Hidden, where prices are over 1,000–2,000 RMB, customers are much less sensitive to price. They care more about your brand, your product, and your service details. Thus, their brand loyalty is far greater than that of typical business or budget hotel customers. As Hidden’s membership grows, these members become the brand’s devoted fans.

    Building and sharing are Hidden’s exclusive life attitudes and philosophies. For Hidden, the Joyful Hidden Tribe are not just members — they are also investors in the group, whom Hidden treats as partners. To better serve these partners, Hidden has launched the “Hidden Butler” service.