Recently, Guizhou issued an action plan proposing to build 5 new high-star Baijiu experience hotels by 2027. Many people's first reaction to this news is: hotels have always been selling alcohol, with a couple of Moutai bottles placed in the lobby bar and food-and-alcohol pairings promoted in the restaurant—isn't that selling alcohol? Why is there a need to build dedicated "Baijiu hotels"? Are alcohol and hotels a cross-border collaboration or a natural business partnership?
By 2027, Guizhou Plans to Add 5 New Baijiu Hotels
Recently, the General Office of the Guizhou Provincial People's Government issued the Action Plan for Guizhou to Build an Upgraded Version of the Transformation from "Selling Alcohol to Selling a Lifestyle" (2026–2030), proposing to add 5 new high-star Baijiu experience hotels, 10 distinctive taverns, and upgrade 21 integrated alcohol-tourism scenic spots by 2027.
Many people's first reaction is: Why does Guizhou need to build dedicated "Baijiu experience hotels"?
Let's first look at the official statement. The opening of the plan mentions comprehensively advancing the full upgrade of the transformation from "selling alcohol to selling a lifestyle" to promote high-quality development of Guizhou's Baijiu industry. Specifically for the hotel sector, the plan encourages high-star hotels and graded homestays to set up sauce-flavor Baijiu experience scenarios, cultivate in-house alcohol culture experience specialists, and provide high-quality characteristic services such as food-and-alcohol pairing guidance, professional tasting explanations, and demonstration of wine utensil usage. At the same time, it will create sauce-flavor Baijiu culture-themed guest rooms, equipped with tasting wine sets, ambient lighting, and custom fragrances, offering Guizhou-style light snacks with a slight intoxicating effect and bedtime drinks to elevate the sauce-flavor Baijiu cultural experience.
The long-term goal set by the plan is that by 2030, the Baijiu consumption scenario matrix will be fully formed, and the concept of transforming "from selling alcohol to selling a lifestyle" will take deeper root in people's minds, becoming an industry consensus and consumption trend, and a perceivable, experiential, and desirable lifestyle.
Putting these contents together, we can understand what Guizhou really wants to achieve. Wineries, food streets, taverns, scenic spots, and hotels are placed in the same system, which essentially shows that Guizhou does not aim to create just a few new projects, but a complete Baijiu consumption chain. It will shift from the past model where "tourists buy a bottle of alcohol to take home" to a new model where "tourists come to Guizhou for alcohol, stay here, experience alcohol, and finally take alcohol home".
In simple terms, hotels are not the end point, but a touchpoint for "Baijiu", still serving the purpose of "alcohol". Why does Guizhou go to such great lengths to build hotels for "selling alcohol"?
The answer lies in Guizhou's most advantageous industrial resources. Its unique terrain and climate have nurtured the sauce-flavor Baijiu industry represented by Moutai, creating Guizhou's most recognizable industrial business card. Baijiu is not only a vital pillar industry for Guizhou, but also the most influential local industrial IP.
However, an unavoidable reality is that the Baijiu industry has entered a stock competition stage. In the past, the industry achieved rapid growth relying on business banquets, gift consumption, and channel expansion. In recent years, with the adjustment of consumption structure, the rise of young consumer groups, and intensified market competition, the traditional growth model is slowing down. More and more alcohol companies realize that it is difficult to open up new growth space by only selling products.
Against this backdrop, finding new consumption scenarios has become a common challenge for the entire Baijiu industry. Meanwhile, Guizhou's cultural tourism market continues to heat up. Data shows that from January to October 2025, the number of tourist arrivals in Guizhou increased by 8.8% year-on-year, and total tourism revenue increased by 11.1% year-on-year. Renhuai, known as the "Capital of Chinese Alcohol", received more than 12 million tourists in 2025, with a comprehensive tourism revenue of 14.5 billion yuan. The growing number of people flow provides a new industrial opportunity for Guizhou.
How to convert the continuous influx of people into new increments of Baijiu consumption? Connecting alcohol with people is the most reasonable card in Guizhou's hand. What serves as the connection? It is the consumption scenarios such as hotels, food streets, and scenic spots, which is also the underlying logic behind Guizhou's launch of the upgraded action plan for the transformation "from selling alcohol to selling a lifestyle". What the plan aims to achieve is to extend tourists' stay time, increase consumption touchpoints, and make Baijiu no longer just a souvenir at the end of the trip, but a core experience throughout the entire travel process.
When hotels begin to take on such a role, a new question arises: Why among all consumption scenarios is it the hotel that Guizhou places such high expectations on? Is the relationship between alcohol and hotels a simple integration of business forms, or a naturally complementary industrial combination?
Are Alcohol and Hotels Inherently a Natural Pair?
Many people may not have seriously thought about a question: Why are hotels called "jiudian" (literally "alcohol shop" in Chinese)?
As early as the Tang and Song dynasties, the term "jiudian" appeared in a large number of ancient documents. The scene of "Wu Song entering a jiudian to drink alcohol" in Water Margin is familiar to many. The jiudian at that time was not a five-star hotel in the modern sense, but an inn with the functions of selling alcohol, providing meals, and accommodation. When ancient people traveled far, the most frequent place they visited was the jiudian: they drank and dined on the first floor, and rested and stayed upstairs. Alcohol and accommodation have never been separated.
In modern times, when the word "Hotel" was translated into Chinese, people did not use terms like "kezhan" (inn), "lüguan" (lodging house), or "binguan" (guesthouse), but chose a word containing the character for "alcohol" — "jiudian". Why choose the character for "alcohol"? A reasonable explanation is that in the Western context, a standard Hotel not only provides accommodation, but also catering services, which means serving alcohol. Some scholars have verified that the original meaning of "hotel" carries the connotation of a pub. Because there were many drunk people, beds were provided, and thus the meaning of an inn was added. A more popular saying goes: A place for drinking without beds is called a pub; a place mainly for drinking where you can sleep after getting drunk is called a hotel; a place mainly for sleeping where you can also get a drink after waking up is also called a hotel. It can be said that the name "hotel" itself is a product left by alcohol culture.
Only later, with the development of the modern hotel industry, accommodation gradually became the core function of hotels, while alcohol was pushed to a corner of the restaurant, bar, or even the minibar. Many people gradually forget that hotels and alcohol were originally inseparable.
This relationship also applies to the global hotel industry. The integration of alcohol-producing regions and hotels has long been a mature business path. World-famous wine-producing regions such as Bordeaux in France, Chianti in Italy, and Napa Valley in the United States have almost formed a complete model of "winery + hotel + catering + experience". Tourists come here not just to stay in a hotel, but to experience a vineyard, a wine-tasting class, a wine-paired dinner, and a local lifestyle. What these places sell is never just a guest room, but a lifestyle centered around wine.
In recent years, similar explorations have emerged in China. The wine-producing region at the eastern foot of Helan Mountain in Ningxia has seen a number of "winery + homestay" and "winery + resort hotel" projects one after another. For example, Yinong Winery is the first homestay-style winery at the eastern foot of Helan Mountain, and was named a National Second-Class Homestay in 2025. It has launched a three-day, two-night winery tour route that integrates winery visits, terroir tastings, and Helan Mountain cultural experiences. In addition, Chateaux Xiaduolan has cooperated with Dayilezhiye, a leading domestic homestay brand, to create an immersive experience of "homestay + winery + customization".
However, for a long time in the past in China, the relationship between alcohol and hotels was more of a channel-based one. Hotels were responsible for banquets, conferences, and wedding receptions, while alcohol was responsible for sales. Each side performed its own duties. Hotels were places to sell alcohol, but not places to experience alcohol.
For example, Moutai International Hotel, which opened in 2016, can be regarded as the 1.0 version of the Baijiu hotel. The most well-known thing about this hotel was the policy implemented at its opening: "Guests can purchase a limited amount of Moutai Feitian at a fair price per day" — as long as you booked a room, each person could buy two bottles of Moutai Feitian at 1499 yuan with their ID card per night. The reservation phone line was constantly busy, and ordinary tourists could hardly book a room. After the policy was suspended in October 2021, the hotel, which used to cost thousands of yuan per night, could be stayed at for just 600 to 700 yuan casually. This also shows that if a hotel is only a channel for selling alcohol, the channel advantage will eventually disappear.
But in the past two years, the mindset has been changing. The Hengchang Shaofang Winery, which opened in 2025, has introduced InterContinental, a luxury hotel brand under the InterContinental Hotels Group, into Moutai Town, and placed the winery, art center, museum, and restored brewing workshop in the same park. Tourists can stay at the hotel, visit art exhibitions, tour the brewing workshop, experience ancient brewing techniques, taste sauce-flavor Baijiu, and take a vacation by the Chishui River. The hotel is no longer a place to sell alcohol, but the starting point of the entire alcohol cultural experience.
On the other hand, the Lianyu Hilton Garden Hotel in Moutai Town has begun to set up "sauce-flavor Baijiu themed rooms", aroma-sniffing installations, and ethnic costume experience services in the hotel, integrating alcohol culture into the accommodation experience. This also shows that it is not necessary to open a winery hotel. As long as there is good content, ordinary hotels can also become a display window for alcohol culture.
More interestingly, this trend has even begun to spread beyond Guizhou. This year, the Ganlinhui Hotel in Shengzhou, Zhejiang, has partnered with Guizhou Moutai Town Jinnv Liquor to launch the "Yueyun Ganlin" sauce-flavor Baijiu, matching the 13 singing styles of Yue Opera with different liquor flavors. Tourists coming here can not only stay at the hotel and listen to Yue Opera, but also taste alcohol and buy cultural and creative products, taking home a piece of Yue Opera culture along with a bottle of alcohol. This is no longer an alcohol company opening a hotel, but a hotel actively using alcohol to tell cultural stories.
Putting these cases together, we can find an increasingly obvious change: in the past, hotels were just the sales terminals of alcohol; today, hotels are becoming content platforms, cultural platforms, and lifestyle platforms for alcohol. Therefore, rather than saying that Guizhou is building alcohol experience hotels, it is redefining alcohol through hotels. Hotels provide new consumption scenarios for alcohol, and alcohol adds more distinctive content experiences to hotels. The significance of their combination is not just to sell a few more bottles of alcohol or a few more rooms, but to create new consumer value through experiences.
So, are alcohol and hotels a natural pair? If "natural" means "generating chemical reactions as soon as they are put together", the answer is no. To generate chemical reactions, efforts must be made to create substantial content.
Why Are More and More Industries Entering the Hotel Sector?
If Guizhou's construction of Baijiu experience hotels is only a local exploration, looking at the entire consumer industry, we will find that in recent years, it is not just the Baijiu industry that is targeting hotels. Tea, coffee, automobiles, and even luxury brands are all getting involved in the hotel business. Hotels are becoming a contested area for more and more industries.
Moreover, these industries are not one-sidedly enthusiastic. Perhaps influenced by the "second growth curve", hotels are also actively cooperating with these products. We can see wedding dress brands entering hotels, skincare and beauty brands entering hotels, art exhibitions being held in guest rooms, and even afternoon teas jointly launched with popular IPs...
Why? Products on the shelves cannot tell complete brand stories. A bottle of alcohol placed in a supermarket has a limited story to tell. However, among all commercial spaces, hotels are one of the few places that can fulfill display, experience, consumption, social interaction, and memory functions at the same time. For example, a winery hotel can incorporate the entire brewing process, brand history, and regional terroir. From getting up, washing, and having breakfast, to leisure in the afternoon, socializing at night, and sleeping, every fragment of life can become an opportunity for brands to connect with consumers. Simply put, products can only be used, while spaces can be experienced. And experience is the scarcest resource today.
Luxury brands were the first to figure out this logic. Staying one night at Armani Hotel means the bedding, toiletries, and furniture are all Armani products. When you check out, you may take away more than just one item. A hotel is not just a hotel, but an immersive brand experience center.
Moreover, for hotels, this is an opportunity to differentiate themselves from others. For example, the Jinmao Purelax Lijiang Hotel, which was previously included in the Marriott Design Hotels™ system, as the first Lancôme Absolue authorized spa hotel in China, has a series of characteristic spa projects such as Lancôme Absolue themed facial spa, Blanc Néo-Calédonia spa, and "Sunrise on the Golden Mountain" spa. With the endorsement of big brands, guests can enjoy spa while watching the sunrise over the snow-capped mountain — this is a unique feature that others cannot replicate.
However, this does not mean that any industry can succeed by entering the hotel sector. In the past few years, many cases have proved that simply moving products into hotels will not automatically form competitiveness. Some hotels just put alcohol in the guest rooms, place tea in the lobby, and serve coffee as welcome drinks, leaving only a few marketing labels. After consumers experience it once, it is difficult for them to form lasting memories, let alone make a special trip there.
Truly successful cross-border hotels often do not simply add a product, but redesign an experience logic, making brand culture part of the space, so that consumers can naturally feel the value behind the products during their stay. This is also a problem that industries need to consider when entering the hotel sector in the future: a hotel is not a larger billboard, nor a new sales channel, but more like an experience platform that can amplify brand value.
Returning to Guizhou's current initiative of building Baijiu experience hotels, this is exactly where its significance lies. On the surface, it is exploring the integration of Baijiu and accommodation, but behind it reflects a change in the entire consumer industry. As consumers pay more and more attention to experience, more and more industries need to find new connection methods, and hotels are becoming an increasingly important carrier. In the future, hotels will not only accommodate accommodation, but also carry more industries' expressions of culture, brands, and lifestyles.
This is probably why, in today's consumer market, more and more industries are beginning to enter hotels. What they really want to access is not the hotel industry itself, but the shared life time spent with consumers behind the hotels.
To sum up, over the years, the hotel industry has been looking for new content, and many industries have also been looking for new scenarios. As a result, we see alcohol entering hotels, tea entering hotels, coffee entering hotels, and more and more brands taking hotels as another stage for themselves. This is not a case of one industry crossing the border into another, but a recognition that today's consumers are increasingly willing to stay for a good experience rather than pay for an ordinary product. Guizhou's exploration this time may not become the only answer, but it has shown the industry a new possibility. In the future, hotel competition may not only focus on rooms, prices, and services, but also on who can make consumers feel that it is "worth coming" and "worth every penny spent".
This article is from the WeChat public account "Space Insight", written by Wu Shuang, and authorized for release by 36Kr.
