Sanya Beach December 27, 2012

Tourists enjoy themselves at a beach in Sanya, a popular winter toursim destination in Hainan Province, December 27, 2012. (Xinhua/Hou Jiansen)

Sanya enters tourist season

Tourists are seen by the seaside of Sanya, a famous tourism city in South China's Hainan province, Dec 8, 2012. Sanya has entered its tourist season recently, attracting large numbers of visitors. (Source: Xinhua)

Tourists enjoy Sanya beach in China

Tourists are seen along a beach in Sanya, a resort city in Hainan Province, Oct. 9, 2013


Source: Xinhua

Sunset in Haikou, Hainan

Sunset in Haikou, Hainan province in China


Source: Xinhua

Hotel giants bet big on Sanya tourism

Source: By Wang Wen in Sanya (China Daily)

China's southern Hainan province is a veritable paradise, with tourists flocking to its sunny shores and golden sands.

However, a shadow was recently cast over this "paradise".

The island and, in particular, its beach city Sanya, made headlines nationwide with the eruption of a tourist overcharging scandal during the Spring Festival holiday in January.

Luo Di, who works for a Beijing-based real estate agency, wrote on China's popular microblogging site Sina Weibo that his friend was charged 4,000 yuan ($635) for a simple three-course meal in Sanya.

Sanya's industry and commerce bureau also revealed that a seafood restaurant charged customers 9,764 yuan for a seven-course meal during the holiday.

These revelations sparked a torrent of complaints from tourists who were angry at being overcharged on the island, with many of them vowing not to travel there any more.

Potential investors, however, remain keen to cash in on the island's booming economic activities.

Luxury hotels, for example, are speeding up their expansion in Sanya, leading to concerns that a bubble is forming in the city's tourism market.

When it comes to high-end infrastructure, many are wondering whether the island has enough bays to accommodate the luxury hotel expansion wave, although they know that the industry's big guns' enthusiasm for Hainan remains undimmed.

Big players enter

In a sign of this continued interest from the industry's major players, Sol Kerzner, a South African business magnate operating one of the world's most expensive hotels in Dubai, has made Sanya his first destination in China.

Kerzner International Holdings Ltd, based in Dubai, whose flagship brand is Atlantis in the Bahamas and Dubai, has snapped up Tufu Bay in Sanya, virgin territory for tourism.

Kerzner, founder and chairman of Kerzner International, said that he planned to open his first Chinese resort in early 2014.

The planned resort will take up an area of 16 hectares and have a half-kilometer coastline.

High-end hotel operators have long battled for a spot in Sanya, where developed beachside locations have fallen short of the increasing demand since the earliest high-end settlements appeared in 1996.

There is no shortage of buyers. Almost every virgin territory in Sanya is snapped up as soon as the local government plans to develop it.

The city now boasts a greater density of high-end hotels than any other city in China, including Beijing and Shanghai.

Sanya's local government said there are 223 tourism hotels in the city, including 13 five-star hotels, 20 four-star hotels and 26 hotels that have been built to a five-star standard, but have yet to be graded.

Almost every famous hotel brand has opened a hotel in Sanya, the crown jewel of Hainan, China's international tourism island.

Marriott International Inc opened its third hotel in Sanya last June and has two more in the pipeline.

"We are growing an increasingly strong presence in Hainan," said Paul Foskey, chief development officer of Asia Marriott International.

"Our existing hotels are performing exceedingly well."

Marriott's Ritz-Carlton Sanya located on Yalong Bay is the most successful Ritz-Carlton anywhere in the world, he added.

St Regis Hotels and Resorts International Inc, the top high-end hotel brand operated by Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide Inc, invested 2.5 billion yuan in its first Chinese resort in the last available area of coastline on Sanya's crowded Yalong Bay in December 2011.

Thanks to this pricey purchase St Regis Sanya became the only resort in the city of Sanya with a yachting marina.

On the same day as the St Regis opened for business, MGM Resorts International also opened its first hotel in the Chinese mainland in Sanya.

In recent years, five-star hotels have become the major players in the battle for beach resources. And as hotels and resorts in Sanya become increasingly luxurious, super five-star hotels have also joined the fray.

The latest developed bays in Sanya will soon be locations for 24 hotels, and all available land there has already been snapped up. This is the reason Kerzner opted for Tufu Bay, in Lingshui county, a relatively remote destination from the urban area of Sanya.

In the long-term, a greater variety of hotels enhances the appeal of a destination, increases the marketing channels directed at consumers and attracts more demand, said Hans Galland, senior vice-president of Jones Lang LaSalle Hotels, the hospitality industry division of Jones Lang LaSalle Inc, a Chicago-based real estate investment services company.

Galland said that based on the company's estimates, the number of rooms in international four- and five-star hotels in Sanya will increase by about 70 percent this year compared with the end of 2010.

According to a plan published by Hainan province's travel committee, 76.8 million person-trips are expected to be made to the island annually by 2020.

Too many?

As more luxury hotels move in, some industry insiders have warned that Sanya's hotel industry may be overheating due to the abundance of high-end hotels.

"The presence of too many high-end hotels has pushed up the average price of hotel stays in Sanya," said Wang Jianmin, a researcher at the Tourism Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

During this year's Spring Festival, a peak season for tourism, the average price of rooms in five-star hotels went up to 3,668 yuan per night, compared to 1,298 yuan one day before the festival.

The week after the Spring Festival, in late January, the average occupancy rate of hotels in Sanya remained around 70 percent compared with 80.48 percent during the Spring Festival, according to tourism agencies.

Each holiday season, the high price of hotel rooms in Sanya is a hot issue. Although the local government has set a price ceiling to cope with public criticism, the average price of hotel rooms keeps rising.

Although they may seem unacceptable to the vast majority of people in China's middle-income bracket, analysts said the soaring prices are normal because they reflect the real demand for quality hotels.

"The supply of high-end hotels in Sanya is still not enough," said Galland.

Only 9 percent of visitors to Sanya stayed in resort hotels during the Spring Festival, but these hotels were all booked out.

Analysts said this showed the big gap between demand and supply for quality hotels in Sanya.

If visitors cannot afford a resort hotel, they have to look for cheaper hotels or guest houses, which are nearer to the free public beaches in the city's downtown area.

But in these types of accommodation, which are often privately run, customer comfort often takes a back seat, and the only beaches their guests can access are the public ones where pollution is a serious issue.

"The government has not designated Sanya as a high-end tourism destination, but actually only rich tourists can enjoy here," Wang Jianmin said.

"The high price of hotels puts off some potential tourists."

The good news is that the local authorities are already taking steps to address the situation.

Available accommodation at guest houses and apartments in high-end communities increased by 18 percent in the past two years.

During the Spring Festival, the average occupancy rate of Sanya's hotels declined by 3.44 percentage points compared with last year, according to figures from the local government.

Analysts said the presence of more budget hotels will not squeeze the revenues of high-end resorts, since they target a different group of consumers.

Alan Leibman, chief executive officer of Kerzner International, said Chinese tourists are looking for better traveling experiences and this gives his company confidence in the long-term market prospects.

Hainan also expects to welcome more foreign visitors, who only accounted for about 2.7 percent of the total visitors to the province in 2011.

Leibman shares that optimism. He said he was encouraged by his recent trip to Moscow, where many top Russian tourism operators are showing great interest in Sanya.

"Our customer group should be a combination of Chinese as well as international guests, who are followers of our hotel brands," he said.

Sanya's nudist beach

Many tourists have posted nude photographs while vacationing at Sanya's nudist beach in south China's Hainan Province, giving the Chinese public a vivid imagination of what happens at Sanya, Taiwan newspaper Want Daily reported.

Sanya is a popular tourist destination in China. The so called nudist beach lies on Da Dong Hai (Great East Sea) beach, is only three kilometers from Sanya. It has become increasingly common to see groups of people chatting and playing cards in the nude at the far end of the beach.

There is no sign posted to inform tourists that the area is for nudists, and there have been reports of embarrassing encounters between clothed and nude beach goers.

An internet user called "yilunanfeng" said that the beach used to be frequented by foreigners on vacation, but gradually more and more Chinese tourists took over the nudist beach.

Perhaps in a contest of traditional values, most of the naked sun bathers are middle-aged men.

"Yilunanfeng" advised that the local government should set up a notice to remind people that there is a nude beach here. (Source: china.org.cn by Ma Yujia)

Romantic Trip To Sanya - Yalong Bay

Located to the southeast of Sanya, Yalong Bay is a 7.5-km crescent-shaped bay. Also known as the Yalong Bay National Resort, it is one of the most famous scenic spots in Hainan Province.Visitors are attracted by its crystal blue sea, warm sand beaches and endless rolling hills. Its clean sea waters make it a nice place for diving. There are various kinds of tropical fishes. It is an ideal place for relaxation, water sports and scuba-diving. [Sohu.com]

Qixian Mountain, Hainan Island

Qixian Mountain, on Hainan Island, offers a wide range of activities, including golf, spas and hiking

Mountain climbing, a round of golf and soaking in a hot spring - have you ever thought of doing all three in the same day? It's a rare combination, but completely possible at Qixian Mountain in southern China. The mountain, which is on the island of Hainan in the South China Sea, is a national park and home to three golf courses and a number of spa resorts.

Weather conditions are cool year round and ideal for getting out the clubs and hitting a few rounds. The annual average temperature is about 23 C.

It's also a good place to take in some fresh air with a hike through the rainforest, and to experience the interesting customs of the Li and Miao ethnic groups.

The mountain's name comes from its appearance. Qi in Chinese means seven while xian means fairy. When the morning mist covers Qixian Mountain, it is said to look like seven fairies wearing chiffons standing under the sky.

It is also sometimes called Qizhi Mountain because it is composed of seven green peaks that resemble seven fingers. Zhi is Mandarin for finger.

Qixian's appearance is the stuff of Li legend. They say their people once lived at the foot of the mountain and were unable to have children. A woman from the village one day prayed to Buddha for a child and that night dreamed that two lights landed in her house. A few months later she was pregnant and had twin boys. The twins grew up strong and were famous figures throughout the village.

The villagers were content, but worried that their homes were in a place where they could be blown away by strong winds. So the two brothers built a ridge to protect the village and in order to see whose part of the ridge was more solid held an archery competition. The elder brother's arrow cut the ridge into seven pieces, creating Qixian Mountain.

Today it is among the best-known mountains in Hainan, alongside Wuzhi Mountain, the tallest on the island.

Here are some of the mountain's main attractions:

1. Qixian Mountain National Forest Park

The park is made up of around 22 square kilometers of tropical rainforest containing numerous hot springs.

Located around 9 kilometers northeast of Baoting County, its peaks are also home to rich ethnic customs.

There are around 40 hot springs in the park that can reach temperatures as high as 94 C. The most attractive is a large spring in the north of the park that covers 2,000 square meters and is about waist deep. The water is a moderate temperature and fit for bathing.

2. Litchi Garden Rainforest Hot Spring Resort

Located in the northern suburb of Baoting county and 76 kilometers from Sanya, Litchi Garden Rainforest
Hot Spring Resort is a great place to connect with nature. Unlike other spring resorts in the park, this one is built within the rainforest and surrounded by litchi and bombax trees, some thousands of years old.

Villas in the resort are built in the southern Guangdong style and each has its own hot spring within its courtyard, from which guests can watch Qixian Mountain while they bathe.

In the evening the hotel also makes a good site for a cooling stroll through the rainforest. Don't worry, there are no large animals or poisonous snakes to fear, although you are likely to be serenaded by loud bullfrogs.

3. Qixian Mountain Golf Course and Spa

Qixian Mountain Golf Course and Spa - opened in 2008 and designed by American golf architect Mark Miller - stands next to Qixian Mountain National Forest Park. The landscape is unusual for a golf course resort, with a green wooded valley, mountainous areas and rainforest within its grounds.

It includes a 245-acre international standard golf course with 18 holes and a 7,151-yard fairway. The highest drop is more than 50 meters, creating an exciting challenge for golfers.

Most of Hainan is too hot for golf from May to August, but this part of the island retains a cooler temperature of between 21 C and 25 C all year round.

Source: China Daily

Sunset over Sanya

Photo taken on February 13, 2015-  Sun sets over beach in Sanya, Hainan Province. (Source: Xinhua/Hou Jiansen)

Sanya crushed by Spring Festival tourist rush

Sanya may be the country's most popular resort during the coming Spring Festival, but the city's infrastructure is not yet ready for the booming tourism.

"Downtown Sanya is designed for 300,000 to 400,000 residents, but during the peak tourism season more than 1 million people will flood into the city," Wang Yong, mayor of Sanya in Hainan province, said on the sidelines of the provincial legislative body's annual session on Monday.

Authorities are speeding up construction, but because of the short annual construction period, it is not an easy job, he added. Due to the four-month typhoon season, the construction period in the tropical city is generally from December to September, and all construction is suspended during tourism seasons such as national holidays and in winter.

The lagging road construction is causing traffic jams and increasing the risks of accidents, especially during the peak traveling season, Wang said.

Besides traffic jams, many tourists in Sanya complain about the difficulty of getting a taxi. According to the Sanya transport bureau, there are 1,234 taxis and another 100 will be arranged in Sanya Phoenix International Airport and other hot tourist spots like Yalong Bay to ease traffic pressure over the coming Spring Festival.

But for Cao Qian, a 31-year-old traveler from Qingdao of Shandong province, the traffic isn't a relief from the winter chill in Shandong.

She arrived in Sanya on Saturday and will return home for work on Feb 15.

"I just gave up getting a taxi because there were no empty taxis coming along for half an hour," Cao said, adding that staying in the hotel to enjoy the sunshine is a good option.

While the traffic problem didn't worry Zhang Chi, a 36-year-old Beijing resident taking his 6-year-old son and wife to Sanya, he said compared with the cold and smoggy days in Beijing, the blue sky and ocean is more attractive.

According to Wang, more than 90 percent of the hotels in Sanya have been booked for the coming Spring Festival, posing a great challenge to the city.

In order to fight price gouging for the coming Chinese New Year, he added, the local price supervision authority published prices of standard rooms in 267 hotels during the holiday with a price cap of 5,000 yuan ($760) for a night.

According to the city's 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15), Sanya plans to invest more than 180 billion yuan in 243 important projects, mainly for tourism, real estate and infrastructure.

Having received more than 11 million visitors in 2012, an increase of 10 percent over 2011, Sanya has become a preferred tourism destination with tourism revenue reaching 19 billion yuan last year, and the number of tourists is expected to grow by 8 percent in 2013.

Source: By Huang Yiming and Wang Qian (China Daily)

Traditions and celebrations

There are a thousand ways to celebrate Spring Festival or Lunar New Year because of the vastness of the country. We track from north to south and from east to west to give you four different ways.

Harbin in Northeast China offers you the coldest ice sculptures and frozen pears with the hottest yangko dance and dumplings. Sanya in South China brings the warmest tropical wind and bluest ocean.

In Hunan's Fenghuang ancient town, the starlight-like river lanterns lead you into the most poetic scene. At Shanxi's Qikou township, the roaring Yellow River, accompanied by the cracking of ice, thrills you with the best of nature.

Harbin, Heilongjiang

Dubbed "Paris of the Orient", Harbin carries the post-Christmas joy right up to Lunar New Year.

The provincial capital of Heilongjiang province in Northeast China still maintains some traces of Western lifestyle and more than 200 fine examples of Russian architecture in town.

But come Spring Festival, the city blends Eastern and Western elements to perfection. The highlight is the annual Harbin Ice and Snow Festival, bringing with it ice sculptures, on-ice performances and entertainment galore.

From Lunar New Year's eve right up to the 15th day of the first month in lunar calendar, every family has a red lantern in their home. Locals and visitors are treated to the yangko dance, a form of folk dance popular in northern China. The dance is so contagious that tourists are not expected to remain observers for long, but to join the dancers and have a good time.

Like most Chinese, local Harbin residents pay special attention to family reunion dinner on the eve of Lunar New Year. The meal must include the "big four" - chicken, fish, ribs and pork leg. If any of the "big four" is missing, it is not considered a reunion dinner with Northeast flavor.

And of course, dumpling is the most important food on the dinner table. The filling can range from sauerkraut to pork, shallot and lamb, and tomato and egg.

Making dumplings with family members is the best bonding activity, and the fastest way for new friends to warm up. Some families will also put a few coins into some of the dumplings. There is a belief that those who chance upon the "fortune dumplings" will be blessed with good luck throughout the coming year.

After a sumptuous dinner, sink your teeth into a frozen pear - a genius creation that can only be inspired by a temperature of -30 C.

Sanya, Hainan

If you are not coping with the cold in North China very well, you will love Sanya in South China. Celebrating Lunar New Year in the tropics is equally exciting.

Nature has blessed Sanya with the best weather, the freshest air, the sunniest sunshine, the bluest ocean and the most delicious seafood. Staying in the island makes you forget about time.

Yalong Bay is a half-moon-shaped bay of 7.5 km in Southeast Sanya. Sand here is soft and glitters under the sun, while the sea is blue and as clear as crystal, with an average temperature of 25 C, making it an ideal year-round swimming paradise.

You may also consider having your wedding portraits done in Sanya. With the breathtaking scenery, you are guaranteed the best and most memorable photographs.

Fenghuang, Hunan

With a name that means "phoenix", you can be assured of a remarkable Spring Festival celebration in this ancient small town in western Hunan province.

The locals keep to the traditional way of celebrating the Lunar New Year. Before reunion dinner, they will have a ceremony to worship their ancestors and after dinner, the older generations in the family will distribute hongbao or red envelops with money to children. And everyone stays up until the wee hours of the morning to usher in the New Year.

Fenghuang cuisine is mainly hot and sour, which makes you perspire as you savor the dishes. The names of the dishes, such as potted mushrooms and sour soup tofu, are enough to make you salivate.

Customs like making sausages and sweet wine, and shopping on the New Year Miao ethnic market remain very much alive.

The most interesting tradition is to float the river lantern. People gather on the Tuojiang River, put the paper-made lanterns on the water surface, light the candles and let the river takes the lanterns and the wishes of the people to wherever it flows. At midnight of New Year's eve, the local government will let off large-scale fireworks, which last for 40 minutes and are really a feast for the eyes.

From the first day to the 15th day of the Lunar New Year, there are also all kinds of performances and galas from various organizations and villages on Phoenix Congwen Square.

Qikou, Shanxi

The Qikou township is a remote town along the Yellow River in Shanxi's Linxian county. Its location at the boundary of Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces gives it the rich culture and characteristics of both the places.

At Qikou, you can watch the ice floating along the Yellow River during the Spring Festival. The Yellow River looks like a huge snake that is casting off its skin. The ice cracks and rumbles like a rock concert on the river.

You can hide in one corner and daydream, or you can sit on heated adobe bed and learn to make cloth tiger and paper-cut decorations from local villagers.

Source: By Zhang Zixuan (China Daily)

Hainan launches Beijing-Boston nonstop service

(China Daily) Hainan Airlines, China's fourth-largest carrier, launched its Beijing-to-Boston nonstop service on Friday with the arrival of a Boeing 787 Dreamliner at Logan International Airport.

The maiden flight landed just after 3 pm local time, giving Hainan its third destination in the United States. Return flight 482 was scheduled to leave Logan at 5:10 pm, with a scheduled arrival of 6:50 pm the next day.

The airline will use the Dreamliner for the new four-day service on Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. But starting on July 18, the carrier will switch to daily flights until Aug 31, Joel Chusid, executive director of Hainan USA, said on Friday.

"Boston was the largest city [in the US] that didn't have nonstop air service to China, and this route is very important because of the educational institutions here," Chusid said Friday in an interview with China Daily. "This is our first gateway on the East Coast, the wait for visas in China has been reduced … and with this airplane we can do a lot of different things."

Massachusetts is one of the biggest markets for Chinese tourists, with close to 150,000 travelers visiting in 2012, per data from the Massachusetts Office of Travel and Tourism.

Hainan expects to serve close to 5,000 travelers a month on the new route, according to a filing with the US Transportation Department.

Massachusetts is home to more than 40 colleges and universities with thousands of Asian and Chinese students, especially in Boston.

Hainan Airlines launched its first route to the US — Beijing-Seattle — in 2008. The Haikou, Hainan province-based airliner also operates flights from Beijing to Toronto and Chicago.

Hainan's launch is the fifth new direct flight trip between the US and China this month. The other carriers with new flights include Air China (Beijing-Washington), United Airlines (Chengdu, Sichuan province-San Francisco), Delta Airlines (Seattle-Hong Kong) and American Airlines (Shanghai-Dallas). On Aug 6, China Southern Airlines Co Ltd will launch a flight from Guangzhou, Guangdong province to New York.

Source: By Jack Freifelder (China Daily USA)

Hainan to build world's largest duty-free shop

(China Times) Southern China's island province of Hainan, a popular tourist destination, is to build the world's largest duty-free shop, according to provincial authorities.

Hainan plans to relocate an existing duty-free shop downtown in the resort city of Sanya, to a 60,000-square-meter complex in Haitang Bay, said the vice governor Tan Li at a press conference during the Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan. Sanya's current duty-free shop is only about 10,000 square meters.

The Sanya Haitang Bay International Shopping Mall will attract international brands and fashion labels and combine duty-free shopping with hotels, restaurants and entertainment.

Hainan also plans to expand and transform another duty-free shop in the provincial capital of Haikou from 3,650 sq m to 4,880 sq m.

The State Council, China's cabinet, gave Hainan permission to run a duty-free program on a trial basis in April 2011 to promote the province as an international tourist destination.

Offshore duty-free shopping in Hainan's two DFS stores in 2013, hit 3.3 billion yuan (US$530 million), up 40% year-on-year.

Source: Want China Times