Park Hyatt Ningbo Resort and Spa

It was the first Park Hyatt in China, but there’s nothing tentative about it. It’s arranged like a village along the shore of the lake, a sprawling cluster of pavilions and villas, erected in a classically influenced contemporary Chinese style. The Standard rooms — the Park Hyatt, thankfully, hasn’t succumbed to the room-category inflation that makes every room “superior” at the very least — are large and lavish for most purposes, though if you can swing a View or a Deluxe you won’t go wrong. Meanwhile the suites are downright extravagant, with seemingly acres of space, and the villas are the stuff of hospitality fantasies.

The fixtures and furnishings are predictably first-rate, and the service, an area where mainland China still lags ever so slightly behind the rest of the Asian luxury market, is quite up to the usual Park Hyatt standard — which, as you’ll know, is a high standard indeed. Also highly rated: the restaurants, one of which specializes in local seafood and regional flavors, and the spa, which draws heavily on traditional Chinese medicine.