Recent years have witnessed a rapid development of star-rated hotels in China, especially highend star-rated hotels. Consequently, there are now approximately12 000 hotels in China. One bottleneck within the industry is its huge energy consumption and carbon emissions, but the development of a comprehensive energy consumption assessment has lagged. Here, a comprehensive energy consumption and carbon emission model suitable for hospitality is established, using comprehensive data collected for hotels over six years and with reference to general international methods, decomposition analysis methods as recommended by the IPCC, and related standards in China. Our study shows that the maximum comparable unit energy consumption per building area among four- and five-star hotels is 73.26 kg ce m^-2 y^-1. Through energy-saving reconstruction, the comprehensive energy consumption of five-star hotels has declined by 4.1% in six years and is smaller than the advanced comparable value of 55 kg ce m^-2 y^-1. The comparable unit energy consumption per area building of most two- and three-star hotels (53 kg ce m^-2 y^-1) is higher than the reasonable value. There are large numbers of hotels of this type in China and the potential energy savings are huge. Analyzing factors of energy consumption, we found that indirect carbon emissions from electricity usage are the most significant. From an energy consumption structural perspective, Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) System accounts for most energy consumption. This research provides a foundation for further examination of energy-savings, emission reduction plans and Monitoring Reporting Verification (MRV) in the hospitality sector.