Before leaving I stayed at the Jinjiang Inn 锦江之星 near Zhongshan park, so I had an oppertunity to check out the current status of Jinjiang Inn. I stayed in Jinjiang Inn two years ago near Century park at Pudong. Overall I liked the setting, the furniture. It appears to me Jinjiang Inn is more luxurious than Home Inns (Ru jia). But there is one minor problem this time: the windows did not close. When I tried to pull the handle of the window, the handle breaks. Being close to the busy Changning road, I had to bear the traffic noise all night. Over my 3 months stay in Shanghai, we also frequented the Jinjiang Chef restaurant, which is owned by Jinjiang Inn. The food there is good, I think. Because we got a membership card, there usually gave some discount for certain items.
On the business side, Jinjiang group (2006.HK) recently attracted attention from the Saudi Kingdom. From this dfdaily (Chinese) news, Kingdom Hotel Investments (KHI) is interested in buying 20% stake in Jinjiang group. Note Jinjiang group owns 80% of the Jinjiang Inn, besides own/manages many high end hotels in China. I believe Jinjiang 锦江 is the No. 1 domestic hotel brand in China.
Meanwhile, Home Inns bought topstar hotel chain lately. The hotel war in China is heating up, before the 2008 Beijing Olympics and 2010 Shanghai world expo.