April 16, 2018 By Joseph S. Margai in Sanya City, China
One of the tourism sites in Sanya City, Hainan Province, Southern China
Sanya, a city situated in the southernmost part of China in Hainan Province. The city generated an income of 40.6 billion Chinese Yuan, which is approximately 6,369,572,246 United States Dollars (over US$6bn) from tourism in 2017.
Dubbed “the oriental Hawaii”, Sanya has 3,500 square kilometres sea area, with 258 kilometres long coastline, 19 large and small bays, and 10 mainly islands.
Predominantly occupied by Han, Li, Miao, Hui and Zhuang ethnic groups, Sanya has a population of 754,300. With the rapid development of its economy, politics, and culture, Sanya has gradually become a famous tourist city for both Chinese and foreign tourists.
Briefing journalists about Sanya City recently at the Sanya Bay Guest House, Zhao Yiwen, General Economist of Sanya Development and Reform Committee, said the Chinese government has built four tourism resort bays – Sanya, Dadonghai, Yalong and Haitang.
He noted that the bays have hundreds of world’s first class resort hotels, providing more than 100 thousand different kinds of guest room accommodation resources every day.
“There are 256 tourist hotels with 56,300 guest rooms and about 50,000 guest rooms in social inns. Internationalised supporting facilities, including considerate and professional team services, can basically satisfy the needs of all kinds of tourists,” he said.
He revealed that currently there are 35 international five-star hotel brands in Sanya, and that the second Atlantis Hotel in the world is also in the city.
Zhao Yiwen said that in 2017, Sanya received more than 18.30 million overnight tourists and 692,800 inbound tourists, which increased total revenue to 40.6 billion Chinese Yuan.
Tang Sixian, Consultant of Sanya Tourism Committee, informed journalists that tourists can arrive and leave Sanya through the seaway, land route and airway.
“Currently, we have established 22 international and regional routes at Sanya Phoenix International Airport, covering Russia, South Korea, Kazakhstan, Thailand, Taiwan, Hong Kong, among others. We are accelerating the development of cruise tourism for Southeast Asia by using Phoenix island cruise port to build the largest cruise port in Asia,” he said.
In relation to the safety of tourists, Tang Sixian said Sanya has the first domestic tourist police force in the world, adding that they have been constantly been improving the market supervision system in order to protect tourists’ safety, especially the 12301 tourist service hotline.
He said the hotline provides tourists with services in different languages, including English, Russian, Korean and Japanese, on a 24-hour basis.
Fu Qiong, Consultant to the Sanya Tourism Committee, said Sanya has become the choice destination for international tourism holiday, wedding and honeymoon makers.
He revealed that visitors to Sanya do not only enjoy the blue sky, sea and sunshine, but also many big international events, including seven times Miss World Global Finals, Volvo Global Sailing Competition, 2017 World Youth Sailboat Championships, 2017-2018 Clipper Round the World Race, ISY International Electronic Music Festival, the Second World Tai Chi Cultural Festival, among others.
“In recent years, Sanya has received several honours and awards. In 2017, the city was the only selected one in China by the New York Times and was voted as one of the 52 places to go for travelling in the world. In 2017, also, Facebook and KPMG jointly issued out 2017 China’s Leading Brand List of Marketing and Sanya was ranked top 15 in the tourism industry list,” he revealed.
He recalled that in 2017, Sanya was voted the “Best Holiday Destination in Asia” ranking the ninth by SmartTravel Asia.
He maintained that in order to continue to attract international market development they are planning to adopt an open visa policy to expand the tourism market in the countries and regions around Europe and China.
One of the conference centres in Sanya that hosted the 2018 Asia Media Leaders Summit