Delicately designed doorways, exquisite cuisine, glamorous lighting, dancing and string quartet performances made the 850-square-meter lobby of Wanda Reign Wuhan a gala venue to celebrate the hotel's first anniversary.

"The Wanda Reign brand is a reflection of true style," said General Manager Boris Blobel at the ceremony. "During the first year of the hotel's opening, we have provided thoughtful services to refresh our guests' passion for the art of living and the brand vision has indeed come true.

"We expect to offer elegant and extravagant services to the most elegant guests."

Wanda Reign is the top luxury sub-brand under Wanda Hotels & Resorts, which was established in 2012. The brand's first outlet, Wanda Reign Wuhan, is located on the bank of East Lake near Han Street, a shopping zone developed by the Wanda group.

The hotel is in an area that is becoming a new landmark of the city. Right behind it is the home theater of the Han Show, a live stage show combining dance, acrobatics, waterworks machinery and intelligent control. At the end of Han Street is the Wanda Movie Park, the world's first indoor movie-themed park.

The design of the hotel highlights many traditional Chinese elements. Its decorations are mostly black and gold, two colors commonly used by ancient China's emperors.

The patterns of the 15-meter high lobby ceiling and the floor are inspired by two ancient Chinese percussion instruments, the fou and bianqing, both of which are historic relics displayed in the Hubei Museum.

Surrounding the lobby is a 60-meter-long, 10-meter-high relief named The Spectacular East Lake, showing eight famous scenes of the lake. Made from white marble, jade and gold gilding, the relief is the largest artwork of its kind in the world.

There are 413 guestrooms in the hotel, along with three restaurants - the HE Japanese restaurant, a buffet eatery and the River Drunk Chinese restaurant that features Huaiyang-style cuisine, providing a variety of traditional and creative food and beverage options.

Compared with some heritage brands, such as Four Seasons and Intercontinental, Wanda Reign is "young, but growing fast", said the general manager. "We are on the right track and developing a culture."

As the top hotel in Wuhan, Wanda Reign has no competitor in the city, he said, which is "good and bad at the same time".

"As we are the only luxury hotel, our customers know exactly where to go," he explained. "But competition is healthy, and can help us make improvements."

In the past year, the hotel won 12 awards, including "China's Best New Hotels" 2014 China Travel Awards by Travel Leisure magazine, the "2014 China's Best Luxury Conference Hotel" China Mag Travel Awards by Mag Magazine and the 2014-2015 City Traveler Best Hotel Awards.

Two additional Wanda Reign hotels will open in Shanghai and Chengdu in December.

"The recognition from guests for our first-class facilities and attentive services gives us confidence and sets even higher expectations in the unveiling of Shanghai and Chengdu Wanda Reign hotels," Blobel said.

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(China Daily 05/09/2015 page10)