Beijing's hospitality industry will further improve their service standards following a requirement issued by the Beijing Tourism Administration.

At a moblization meeting for welcoming the Beijing Olympic Games, Zhang Huiguang, director of BTA, raised a series of requirements for the city's hotel industry. For the check-in and check-out time, Zhang asked the service counter of Beijing hotels to spend no more than five minutes in completing the check-in and check-out procedures for individual guests and no more than 20 minutes for groups consisted of less than 30 people.

Regarding guests' luggage, Zhang said that the hotels should send the guests' luggage to their rooms within 10 minutes after their check-in and take their luggage to the hotel hall within minutes after their check-out. He said that the time the hotels spend on sending or taking group guests' luggage should not be more than 30 minutes after their check-in or check-out.

For telephone service, Zhang asked that hotels of three-star grade or above must have a telephone exchange which shall be answered by a full-time operator, and hotels below two stars and guest rooms should also arrange a telephone exchange if possible, or they should hire a part-time staff to be responsible for answering the phone. Zhang said that each telephone of the hotel should be answered within 10 seconds after the first ring.

For dining service, all star grade hotels and restaurants are asked to provide a menu at their venue with at least two languages and mark their food prices on the menu.