Actually,it just take half an hour to get to Airport from the hotels in the center of Guilin city as your fright time is so early, because the traffic is not that busy early in the morning,and in my oppinion,Universalry hotel or Ming Chen hotel would be the best choice as not expensive,but very good location and envoroment.

For ease of transportation, a couple of friends recently stayed at the Aviation Hotel as it's where the airport shuttle operates from. It's a rather budget place but they said it was reasonably good value for money.

Thanks for your replies. We ended up staying at the Osmanthus and reserving a taxi for that morning. It worked out fine. People in town did tell us that the Aviation Hotel is the only one that the airport bus leaves from, but there weren't any buses that left early enough to get us there on time.