"All banquet bookings at our hotel have been canceled," said a staff member from thebanquet division at the Beijing Friendship Hotel, a hotel designated for governmentconferences.

A banquet room at a five-star hotel in Guangzhou, Guangdong province

　　Banquet divisions in some luxury hotels are looking for new clients because of a sharpdrop in bookings ahead of Spring Festival, the peak season for the industry.

　　The fall in bookings follows moves announced by the central government last month tocombat extravagance and corruption.

　　"All banquet bookings at our hotel have been canceled," said a staff member from thebanquet division at the Beijing Friendship Hotel, a hotel designated for governmentconferences.

　　He said the hotel catered for at least two or three banquets a week during peak seasonin the past, but the number has fallen to zero this year.

　　Clients - mainly government departments and State-owned enterprises - canceled theirbookings in response to the new government regulations. It had been tradition forgovernment departments to hold annual "greeting meetings" in high-end hotels beforeSpring Festival.

　　The Beijing Friendship Hotel spokesman said: "The cancellations are too sudden andwe do not have a way to make up the losses yet. My team is trying its best to look forother clients."

　　A five-star hotel in Hangzhou, Zhejiang province, said it received 10 banquetcancellations before Spring Festival, as a result of the new regulations, and manyclients had also decided to cut back on greetings events for the holiday.

　　"The loss is sizable," the hotel"s manager, who declined to be identified, told ChinaDaily.

　　However, although hotels have been hit hard, some business insiders have welcomedthe changes.

　　"Business is not as good as last year definitely, but it means the industry is going backto a real commercial business," said Song Guojing, general manager of Beijing HotSpring Leisure City, a hot spring resort.

　　The market was abnormal, as the room occupancy rate at the resort was almost 100 percent at the end of the year, Song said, adding that such brisk business had been supported by public funds.

　　"Now, public funds have been withdrawn from the market and it is back to a normal operating environment for hotels," Song added.

　　Wang Jianmin, a researcher at the Tourism Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said: "Canceled bookings from government departments have exposed the problem for domestic hotels."

　　High-end hotels in China had depended excessively on government consumption in the past, Wang said, adding that international chain hotels now had an advantage as they are not hit by the new regulations.

　　Wang added: "This year"s drop in bookings may be an opportunity to push hotels to change their operating methods and search for new clients."

　　High-end hotels were "too removed" from residents and had limited themselves to fixed consumer groups in the past, Wang said. "The hotels should launch promotions and interact more with residents," he suggested.

　　The marketing director at a German-run hotel in Beijing said: "Consumption by government officials and institutions only contributes a very tiny part to our operations, and the hotel"s performance has not been affected."

　　Wang Jian, spokesman for the Guangdong branch of China Travel Services, said travel firms" restaurant business had also been affected ahead of Spring Festival.

　　Their tours business, especially that depending heavily on institutional clients, is also likely to be affected in spring and summer, he said.

　　Leisure travel using public funds had fallen even before the new government regulations were announced as people kept a close watch on consumption by government officials and public institutions. Wang Jian said that to cope with the change, tour companies should work to attract more individual travelers, which has become a trend worldwide.