(Yicai Global) Dec. 27 -- The British Museum opened its first cooperative hotel recently in the coastal city of Qingdao in China's eastern Shandong province.

This move comes after it sold cultural products on the Tmall e-commerce platform of Hangzhou-headquartered Alibaba Group Holding and debuted a joint-name mobile phone with Xiamen, Fujian province-based Meitu to popularize its intellectual property.

The newly-opened hotel is under the Lanou brand of local company Qingdao Sunmei Group. 'The British Museum X Lanou Hotel,' which is near Qingdao's International Financial Center, has 120 rooms and a total area of 10,000 square meters, Sunmei management said, China's TechCrunch-like online media 36Kr reported.

Qingdao Sunmei Group, formerly ThankYou Group, is a large Chinese hotel chain that owns 12 hotel brands that span the full gamut of budget hotels, mid-to-high-end hotels, homestays and vacation inns. It has opened 3,500 stores in 1,000 cities nationwide. Lanou is a mid-to-high-end hotel brand under Sunmei positioned in the 'hotel+art' model.

As the world's first hotel authorized by the British Museum, Lanou has adopted a model of leasing property and then renovating it. The chain and the British Museum jointly undertook the remodeling of this hotel.

In addition to regular rooms, a lobby and gym, the hotel has set up a retail area selling related derivatives and co-branded household items it and the British Museum co-developed, with works exhibited in corridors and the lobby licensed by the museum.

The hotel and the museum have also created 10 graphic sets used on daily necessities in rooms, such as sewing kits depicting ancient deities and slippers featuring elegant Greek goddesses.

The cooperation is an effective and long-term offline promotion for its IP, Sunmei's management believes, and also gives the hotel a greater premium space. 

Hotels are natural offline traffic portals, and so the sale of IP-licensed products can significantly increase their hotels' footfall and influence, in the company's view.

Lanou Hotel plans to open a further 200 'British Museum X Lanou Hotels' nationwide next year.

Editor: Ben Armour