Harry Winston Diamond Corp, the Canadian mining group which owns the jewelers, has this week announced plans to build a flagship store in Shanghai.

And it will be hard to miss, boasting a 12-meter high façade a company spokesman says will be like a “billboard to the world, a billboard to the Chinese people.”

The 460-square-meter flagship store — to be opened “before January” next year — will be supplemented by a salon inside the lobby of the Peninsula Shanghai hotel.

Jumeirah Group, the Dubai-based luxury hotel company, announces the soft opening of its first five-star luxury hotel in China at the Himalayas Centre in Pudong, Shanghai.

Jumeirah Himalayas Hotel Shanghai features 401 contemporary Chinese-style guestrooms, including 62 suites and residences, four restaurants and lounges, a 24-hour fitness centre and indoor swimming pool.

The hotel also offers extensive meeting, conference and event facilities, including two grand ballrooms and a 5,000m2 rooftop Infinity Garden.

The tastes of China’s wealthy are shifting away from designer goods with flashy logos to more understated luxury brands, the chief executive of French fashion house Chloe said Friday.

That shift has helped Chloe become one of the Swiss luxury goods company Richemont Group‘s fastest-growing labels in China, its CEO said.

“China has been very fast at picking up the most well-known brands,” Geoffroy de la Bourdonnaye said in a group interview.

Shangri-La has debuted a new luxury five star brand with the opening of a new hotel in Shanghai February 18.

Kerry Hotels is a new five-star contemporary brand from Shangri-La which provides “a seamless link between business, entertainment and recreation.”

The new Shanghai Pudong property offers 574 guestrooms decked out with the latest technology such as DVD players, Nespresso machines, iPod docking stations and 40-inch televisions.

China has followed Japan‘s lead in the capsule hotel market, amid an explosion of leisure travel in the world’s most populous country.

The first capsule hotel in Shanghai opened at the weekend, less than a month before the Spring Festival holiday, when hundreds of millions of people crisscross the country to celebrate Lunar New Year with their families.

The hotel has 68 cabinet-sized rooms imported from Japan, each equipped with a power point, clock, light, television and wireless Internet.

The cream of China’s hotel industry has been selected by a Chinese publication, with the top gongs going to properties in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Hangzhou.

The China Best Design Hotel Awards were awarded last month in Shanghai, with three exclusive properties coming top of the list — The Mira Hong Kong, the Waldorf Astoria Hotel Shanghai and the Four Seasons Hangzhou West Lake.

Presented by The Bund, a Chinese lifestyle magazine, the China Best Design Hotel Awards are chosen by public vote and a panel of international design experts.