Travel China Planner

The five-star Grand Metropark Resort Sanya has had its grand opening, marking the official entry of the resort brand managed by HK CTS Hotels Company into the Hainan International Tourism Island.

Thomas Guan, the general manager of Grand Metropark Resort Sanya, told around 300 celebrities, dignitaries, society guests and members of media that as the largest tourism group in China, innovation and development are very important for the group. He continued that the group was taking the first step forward together with Hainan International Tourism Island.

The resort is located in the center of Yalong Bay International PGA Golf Course and has 108 villas and 110 rooms. For meetings and banquets the property boasts a 500-square ballroom and meeting area equipped with modern conference equipment and sophisticated audio-visual equipment, which can accommodate groups of different sizes.

The resort has three different styles of restaurant, a British pub, a spa center, fitness center, kid’s club, as well as a range of water sports.

To encourage the development of tourism in Sanya, and to encourage travel agencies to develop tourist source market, the Sanya government will reward travel agencies that have registered in the city and that have made outstanding contributions to Sanya’s tourism.

Premiums will be given according to the number of inbound and outbound tourists agencies have accepted yearly. Travel agencies that have accepted 10,000 to 30,000 inbound tourists in one year will get CNY10,000; those that have accepted 50,000 to 70,000 inbound tourists will be awarded CNY50,000; for 70,000 to 100,000 inbound tourists the award is CNY70,000, and for more than 100,000 inbound tourists the bonus is CNY100,000.

CNY20,000 will be granted to each agency that has accepted 2,000 to 5,000 outbound tourists; CNY50,000 to agencies that have accepted 5,000 to 10,000 tourists; and CNY100,000 will be given to agencies accepting more than 10,000 outbound tourists yearly. In addition, if qualifying travel agencies have accepted an equivalent number of European (including Russian) and American tourists, they will receive an additional CNY10,000.

Carlson Hotels Worldwide has announced that it will be managing a second Radisson hotel in Sanya Bay, Hainan.

The latest agreement with Sanya Zhong Gang Real Estate Company marks the ninth hotel property currently under development in China for Carlson.

Radisson Hotels & Resorts is the upscale, full-service brand of Carlson. The group recently announced that it will manage a Radisson Plaza hotel, which is the brand’s premium extension, in Sanya on the Lu Hui Tou peninsula.

The Radisson Hotel Sanya Bay will be located at the intersection of Yue Jin Road and Sheng Li Road, close to Sanya city and about 20 kilometers from the airport. There is also a new conference center under construction close to the hotel, which can accommodate up to 3,000 delegates, catering to the growing MICE segment.

Radisson Hotel Sanya Bay will have 415 rooms, several restaurants and meeting facilities, including a 1,500 square meter ballroom and eight meeting rooms. The property is scheduled to open in 2012.

Another eight hotels are currently under development in China including the Radisson Plaza Hotel Chongqing Nan Bin Lu, Radisson Plaza Hotel Sanya Lu Hui Tou, Radisson Plaza Hotel Tianjin, Radisson Plaza Hotel Shenyang Hunnan and Radisson Hotel Liuzhou.

Radisson Plaza, Sanya, China

On the 9th Feb we flew to Sanya with Air China, it was the best airline in China and a very comfortable flight, better than we had been expected. So we arrived into Sanya in the late evening and jumped onto a bus to the centre. Got to the hotel in Sanya, and were met with disappointment.

The place wasn’t that clean, the bathroom wasn’t the nicest and it was on the 12th floor of 20 story very run down building and it cost us 240RMB (very expensive). There were 2 lifts, shared by all the buildings tenants, who spat and discarded their rubbish in a perfect irregular mess.

We eventually found a great little place right across the lane way. Turned out that they hadn’t any rooms for that night, her friend came to get us to show us her place across the lane. (As we walked in the direction of the dreaded lifts, we both prayed that it wasn’t there- and it was!- on the 9th floor. We went to see it anyway, it was nicer and a lot cheaper, we told the lady we would have to think about it, and as she led us out of the building. The two guys that had been in the room that we had viewed were standing in the reception with all their luggage, one exchanging deposits and money with the owner the other with a very confused look upon his face, a smile for us. Turns out they had kicked the two guys out across the road to the 9th floor, the sheets were changed, the room cleaned and it was now ours.

Sanya is a pretty place, not much to do, so we relaxed by the beach, sat for ages over meals. The tribal ladies go around selling them from little baskets. I know nothing about pearls.

All in all though, Sanya is a really beautiful place, it has been host to the Miss World competition for the past 3 years, and that has put Hainan on the map. We took a bus to the fancy resort area( Yulong Bay) of Sanya one of the days, and it was just a maze of resort hotels and restaurants. Very expensive hotels and clean private beaches. We read in the guide book that some locals try to charge you 60 just to enter onto the beach.

We had planned to go surfing in Hainan and went to Sanya for that reason, but the surfing beach was at least 2-3 hours by bus away form where we stayed, there were no surf shops or schools and only one surf tour, costing about 900RMB for us both, for a couple of hours surfing.

It’s 5 in the morning in the Red Pepper nightclub in Sanya,Hainan Province of China, and I’m surrounded by beauty queens. A couple hours earlier, the 57th Miss World contest ended, with Miss China being crowned as Miss World.

For the 106 contestants, it’s their first taste of freedom for a month. Over the last four weeks, they have been confined to a luxury hotel in Sanya, a fast-growing resort that mainly for well-off Chinese tourists and Russians escaping their frozen winter in China.

While Miss World is regarded as an anachronism in the west, or worse as a sexist display that demeans women, the contest remains popular in China. The South American beauty queens in particular are a driven bunch, some of whom have clearly spent large sums on enhancing their natural assets. .

For the Chinese, hosting Miss World for four out of the last five years has had both economic and propaganda value. Hainan used to be the best known as the place where China’s emperors exiled those who had displeased them. Now, the island receives 17 million tourists a year and tourism in Hainan is helping lift the locals, whose only other options are fishing and farming, out of poverty.