The 116-room Tangla Hotel Tianjin offers a distinctively Eastern hospitality experience in a refined downtown setting in the sprawling Chinese metropolis.

Tianjin is the largest coastal city in northern China and the sixth-largest city in the country in terms of urban population.

Given its history as a key center of commerce in northern China, it has long had a thriving hotel industry, with some of its establishments over a hundred years old. With foreign investment pouring into the city in recent years, the hotel industry has expanded swiftly. The city had just six five-star hotels in 2006, but by the end of the year it will have 36.

With the Tianjin hotel market growing fast, and attracting an increasing number of international five-star brands, Tangla has pioneered a new service-oriented operating model that distinguishes the hotel from its competitors.

In its Tianjin property, it blurred the lines between traditional hotel departments, such as the front office, housekeeping, and food and beverage, and replaced them with dedicated "ambassadors."

Ambassadorial service

The "Tangla Ambassador" concept divides the hotel into "ambassador service units" with a dedicated ambassador per unit who is responsible for the guests assigned to him.

"This is an innovative way to provide guests with the high level of service they expect," said general manager Fintan O'Doherty. "Chinese guests feel they are being treated as VIPs."

The American Academy of Hospitality Sciences in New York City — which provides international accreditation for hotels — recognized Tianjin’s service innovations with a prestigious Six-Star Diamond Award, the top award it bestows in the international service sector.

Tangla was the first Chinese hotel brand on the mainland to receive the Six-Star Diamond Award, and only one of five recipients globally, which also include the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo and the Peninsula Hong Kong.