Should you stay in a hotel, a serviced apartment or a guesthouse in Shanghai?

None of the three words is a precise category in Shanghai, and the same sign outside can mean a staffed chain hotel or one flat run by an individual.

What each one actually is here

Hotels span the widest range: at one end international chains and business hotels, with a desk staffed around the clock, daily cleaning, luggage storage and staff who can usually check you in in English; at the other, small inns, budget chains and boutique properties in old buildings, where service shrinks to a bed and a bathroom, there may be no lift, and nobody is at the desk at night.

Apartments come in two kinds. A serviced apartment hotel is run by a company and let by the day or week, usually with a desk and cleaning plus a kitchen and a washing machine. The other is a short-term let in an ordinary residential building, where the owner rents a flat by the night; whether that is legal inside a residential block is genuinely unclear, and many compounds do not permit it.

Guesthouses are just as broad: a converted room in an old lane house, a whole old villa, or a spare bedroom in a flat where the host also lives. Privacy, bathroom and noise depend entirely on the listing.

The decisive questions: registration and the handover

The first is whether the property can take foreign guests. Accommodation in China must register foreign guests with the local police at check-in, and a property that cannot do so may be unable to accept a foreign guest at all; the mechanism is set out in our answer on whether Shanghai hotels accept foreign guests. This is not a hotel-only problem: short-term lets and guesthouses face the same obligation with higher risk, because the operator is often one person who may not know how to register a foreign guest, or that it is required, and if it cannot be done you cannot stay.

The next is the handover. Apartments and guesthouses often have no desk: the deposit, the key and the arrival time are arranged by message, sometimes waiting for the owner to appear, which is awkward late at night. Before booking, ask: is there a 24-hour desk; what is the check-in process; is there a deposit and how is it returned; is there a lift; is the address a residential compound; and if something breaks, who do you call.

What each is good at, and bad at

Hotels are good at service and certainty: daily cleaning, luggage storage, some English at the desk, someone there when you arrive late. They are bad at space and price: a room buys less floor area than an apartment for the same money, and the word hotel is no guarantee, since it can equally mean an inn with no lift and no English.

Apartments are good at space and living: separate sitting and sleeping areas, a kitchen, a washing machine, which for families or stays of a week or more is real value. They are bad at consistency: quality varies widely, there is no desk for problems, deposits and check-in must be agreed in advance, an older building may have no lift, and everything rests on one person.

Guesthouses are good at character: a host, a location and a neighbourhood feel a hotel cannot supply. They are bad at privacy, sound insulation and English: your room may share walls or a bathroom, sound carries badly through old masonry, English-speaking hosts are not the norm, and that gap is where check-in and registration go wrong.

How to choose: nights first, then people

For one or two nights, alone or as a pair, a hotel is least trouble; for a week or more, with children or in a group, an apartment’s space, kitchen and washing machine start to pay for themselves; a single night that also wants character usually gets the worst of both. With children or older travellers, a lift, reliable hot water and a staffed desk matter more than how the room looks.

The honest conclusion: for a first visit of two or three nights a hotel is the low-risk choice, and the extra money buys certainty; over a longer stay or with a family an apartment earns its place; a guesthouse is a trade-off in character, buying a host and a neighbourhood at the cost of privacy, sound insulation and being understood. For the district, see Where to stay in Shanghai; rates, deposits and cancellation terms are whatever the booking page and the property say on the day.