Ascott, a leading international serviced residence owner-operator, will accelerate its business expansion in China by managing 20,000 serviced apartment units in the country this year, three years ahead of its original schedule, the company's top management said.

As CapitaLand's wholly owned serviced-residence business unit, whose brands include Ascott, Citadines, Sheng Jie, Quest The, Crest Collection and Lyf, Ascott currently owns more than 18,000 operating serviced residence units in China.

Since Ascott's business first entered Tianjin in 1998, it has laid out 23 properties in six cities - Beijing, Tianjin, Dalian, Shenyang, Harbin and Handan - in northern China.

Ascott's first cooperation project with Riverside Group on service apartments went into full operation on Thursday in Beijing, making Beijing the first city around the world to contain three Ascott properties.

"As China's political, economic and cultural center as well as an important transportation hub, Beijing is a city with large business and travel demand," said Alex Wang, area general manager for Ascott North China. "For Ascott, this newly-opened service apartment represents a milestone in Beijing."

Ascott also makes full use of advanced Internet technology and new innovations to improve its operation efficiency and customer experiences.

"Xiao Ya", an upcoming online customer-service robot, is expected to provide several services on its own - including leading guests to their rooms or other destinations, completing the room supplies, delivering packages, conducting online voice dialogue and patrolling - in the near future.

"Many young talents are flooding into first-tier cities for the expanding job market, however, due to ever-growing housing prices, they can only afford to rent a house for a short period," said Chen Zhishang, managing director of Ascott China. "Thanks to the Chinese government's preferential policies in recent years, we get a precious opportunity to develop our business in China."

As for their future plans in China, Chen said: "We will hasten our business development in China and continue to expand our business in first and second - tier cities - such as Wuhan and Hangzhou - to increase our product lines."