The Swan that made a splash in mainland investment

First foreign-funded top hotel faced big hurdles

At the point where the Pearl River washes past Shamian Island in Guangzhou, rows of European-style stone mansions are a reminder of colonial times.

Among them is a conspicuous, 34-storey, modern white building whose atrium, opened 28 years ago, still attracts crowds of visitors keen to take photographs of an elegant waterfall. It cascades down into a stream full of colourful fish, crossed by a traditional wooden bridge and reflecting the beauty and taste of traditional southern Chinese style.

It is the White Swan Hotel, the first joint-venture five-star hotel on the mainland, whose story is inseparable from the economic opening and reform policy conceived 30 years ago. It also represents an important chapter in the mainland investment experience of Hong Kong tycoon Henry Fok Ying-tung, who died in 2006.

The State Council set up a committee to attract overseas investment in hotels shortly before the third plenum of the 11th congress, in 1978, when paramount leader Deng Xiaoping put China on the path of reform. The committee's task was to build eight joint-venture deluxe hotels - in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Nanjing .

It was against this backdrop that Xinhua's Hong Kong branch, Beijing's de facto consulate in the British colony, contacted Fok, proposing he invest in Guangdong's tourism business, according to an authorised book about Fok and the White Swan.

The book, The Glory and the Search: Henry Fok Ying-tung's Dream and the White Swan's Path, is recommended reading to learn the history of the hotel.