三
亚是中国最南端的海滨城市，也是海南岛的度假中心。长久以来，这里纯净的白沙滩和四季如春的气候吸引着中国各地的游客纷至沓来。不过一直到最近，各大豪华酒店集团才关注到了三亚的巨大潜力：在过去的16个月里，丽思卡尔顿(Ritz-Carlton)、文华东方(Mandarin Oriental)、悦榕庄(Banyan Tree)姗姗来迟，加入到了先行者万豪(Marriott)、希尔顿(Hilton)和雅高(Accor)的行列中来。这还没算上豪生酒店(Howard Johnson)呢，去年12月，拥有1,360间客房的三亚豪生大酒店隆重开业，成了三亚豪华型酒店中的老大。
三亚的阳光、沙滩
旅游产业发展局的数据显示，去年三亚吸引了600万名游客，比2007年增长了12%，比2006年增长了约30%。三亚号称中国"永远的热带天堂"──为了与这一名号相配，很多的中国游客，不分男女，都穿着一种堪称海南岛象征的热带风格服装：色彩绚烂的花衬衫以及与之相配的长到膝盖的短裤。对于中国新富们来说，能在五星级酒店的海滩上尽兴玩乐，同时可以讲着自己的语言、吃着自己习惯口味的可口饭菜，这绝对是一种极大的诱惑。
丽思卡尔顿集团发言人维维安・道希尔(Vivian Deuschl)说，他们选择了三亚，是"因为中国的度假地很少，在旅游业很多人看来，（三亚）有着跟巴厘岛一样的吸引力，尤其是对于富裕的亚洲人。"三亚文华东方酒店是文华东方集团目前在中国大陆唯一一家酒店。当然集团在广州和北京也正在上马新项目，如果没有今年2月份那场大火，北京文华东方酒店本应于今夏在中央电视台总部大楼开张的。三亚文华东方酒店发言人Rebecca Hui说，"三亚是一个以旅游为主导产业的城市，有很多大酒店在此落户。"
三亚悦榕庄
国外的游客到三亚得多费点周章。俄罗斯有包机前往三亚（英国的包机业务在六个月没有盈利之后停运了），不过中国大陆之外有定期直航前往三亚的只有首尔和香港两个地方。全球经济的不景气又使得来自海外的游客数量大大减少。韩国最近遭受了经济危机之后，前往三亚韩国游客数量急剧下降。三亚万豪度假酒店及水疗中心(Sanya Marriott Resort & Spa)称，一季度来自俄罗斯和美国的客人都比去年减少了50%以上。不过很多酒店都表示，与此同时，香港游客却是有增无减。三亚距离香港只有区区600公里，所以对于香港人来说，三亚是经济低迷时期度个小假的理想之地。国内游客则依然是蜂拥而至。
三亚文华东方酒店总经理贺冠达(Gerd Knaust)表示，"仅凭大陆客人我们便可轻松维持下去了。绰绰有余。"比如，1月份中国春假假期期间，三亚各大酒店都是人满为患──尽管有些酒店的房费是原先的三倍以上。
从03年开始的五年中，三亚举办了四届世界小姐选美大赛
三亚海滩文化缘起于大东海，大东海是三亚市区附近一处拥挤、狭长的沙滩。市区西面、从市中心往机场方向20分钟车程的三亚湾，则是大东海之后的酒店集中地，这些酒店多数是中国人所有并经营的，不过假日酒店(Holiday Inn)和凯宾斯基酒店(Kempinski)也在这里。三亚最美的地方当属距离市区半小时车程的亚龙湾。20世纪90年代中期之前，亚龙湾一直由中国海军控制，不得开发，如今，在这片绝佳的海滩上排列着16家豪华酒店。第一家是香港人经营的凯莱大酒店(Gloria)，于1995年开张，以假日酒店和希尔顿为首的国际大牌酒店紧随其后。2008年3月开业的丽思卡尔顿属于最后一拨海景大酒店。此后，新的酒店依然层出不穷──只是如今都排在了第二梯队，不能紧挨着海滩了。
亚龙湾如此大受青睐，但给人的感觉并不拥挤。这里的海滨酒店有着整洁优美的花园，居高临下俯瞰着绿树阴翳的亚龙湾海景。比如，在万豪酒店，客人们可以在面包果树和鸡蛋花树之间徜徉，在硕大的不规则形状游泳池边相互拍照。情侣们穿着酒店的拖鞋和浴衣便可直奔海滩，户外吧里，年长的客人摊开沙滩浴巾、玩起了麻将。
唐副局长说，如果没有亚龙湾，把三亚打造成顶级度假胜地"就会很难"。不过这可是在中国，三亚的旅游当局还有更大的雄心呢。在三亚的东面，往博鳌的方向去，是拥有21公里沙滩的海棠湾──比亚龙湾要长出好几倍。一条现代化的公路连接了三亚和海棠湾，2013年前还将开通特快列车。旅游局预计，20年之内，海棠湾将拥有40家顶级度假村。三亚万豪酒店市场营销主管Edmund Ko说，"人人"都向往那里。
三亚丽思卡尔顿酒店
酒店志在为客人提供一站式的服务，拥有11家餐厅和酒吧、一个水疗中心──其服务从为打过高尔夫球的客人按摩，到"收缩毛孔"美容，应有尽有。酒店内的每栋柚木别墅都有管家服务、一个私人泳池和一个观景亭。
对于游客而言，海南岛还是有一些别具特色的文化的。岛上有120万黎族居民，黎族是中国政府官方认可的55个少数民族之一。现在多数黎族人都进了城，告别了他们特有的语言和文化，不过还有那么一些零星的地方保留了旧有的生活方式──或者为了发展旅游实施了一定程度的保护，比如槟榔园的民族文化村。在这里你会看到停车场上挤满了旅游大巴，导游们戴着跟服饰搭配的草帽，对着手提式扩音器大吼大叫，不过你可千万不要被这样的场景给吓跑了啊，槟榔园确实是个很值得一游的民俗文化主题公园。
游人可以去看看那些茅草屋、拿根竹烟袋吸吸水烟、听听当地民歌、尝尝看上去像牛奶一样的米酒。有一家管理非常好的黎族博物馆──有个广告牌上称他们为"活化石"──展出黎族的陶器、手工枪械以及其他手工制品。此外还有一家展出传统黎族织锦服饰的博物馆（这些服饰穿在个子极高、看起来像西方人的人体模型身上），两家博物馆都有非常详尽的英文资讯。一些脸上、腿上带有黎族特有的细长图形青色文身的老年妇女用简单的踞织腰机织布，并向游客出售自己的作品。
槟榔园的文化教育实践活动却令人大跌眼镜──还有些令人感觉不爽。今年年初的某一天，游客们围在一个小水池旁边，冲着十多只可怜的鲶鱼投掷竹鱼叉，那些鲶鱼有的已经肚子朝天，漂在30厘米深的水面上了。边上的一个射击场里，游客们正手持黎族的弓弩冲着拴在地面的活生生的鸟儿射出木飞镖。
在三亚湾近海的西岛和亚龙湾附近的蜈支州岛有浮潜和帆板项目。一年之中，除4月份之外，海南岛的南部海岸都是绝佳的冲浪好去处，如今这里在一小拨海外冲浪爱好者中已经享有盛名；距离三亚大约80公里的石梅湾，海浪能掀起3米高，形成长波。三亚迄今已经举办了至少两次国际冲浪赛事。
29岁的布伦达・谢里丹(Brendan Sheridan)来自美国，如今在大东海海滩经营着一家只有一个房间的小店，出售、出租冲浪板，他说，让中国人去冲浪很难。他回忆道，有一次他想要说服一位中国游客上一堂冲浪课，结果对方问他是否可以带上遮阳伞。谢里丹说，"我笑而不答。后来她没有带伞，冲得还挺好的。"
三亚的夜生活并不出彩，不过游客如果不想呆在酒店酒吧里听菲律宾乐队的舒缓演奏，大可去闹市区榆亚大道一带的劲舞厅。"酒吧街"整整一条街上全是各类俱乐部，从流行乐到电子乐，应有尽有。66是其中很有特色的一家酒吧，中国风融合了美国公路旅馆或酒吧的风格，装点着一些小古玩和复古式样的工业管道和调速轮。
尽管如此，酒店经营者们还是认为三亚的吸引力不够多面，希望三亚进一步有所作为。
三亚文华东方酒店毗邻大东海海滩
小偷小摸之类的犯罪也是三亚面临的一个问题。旅游局的唐副局长表示，游客在市集上频频遭遇扒手，是"令人头疼的一个问题"，三亚现有1,000多人的警力至少得要增加两倍才够。
有些还不习惯于还价的外国人则抱怨说，三亚的出租车司机和商店店主想要敲他们的竹杠。莫斯科律师余利亚・瑟吉瓦(Yuliya Sergeeva)说，"两个小时之后，你就会感觉非常愤怒，你没法放松下来。"即便是亚龙湾那些五星级酒店，也很容易受到色情服务的影响。三亚希尔顿度假酒店一位保安兴致勃勃地给一位客人拉皮条，要给他找个女的来过上一夜。
不过，"中国热带天堂"的魅力是不可否认的，很多游客都深深地陶醉其中。来自澳大利亚的克里斯・马科斯(Chris Marks)是一家工程公司的主管，如今生活、工作在上海，他说，三亚"超出了我的预期"。
马科斯微笑着和妻子以及两个十来岁的女儿跟一群中国人一起登上了三亚湾假日酒店外的一辆观光巴士。他说，"这车应该是去某个购物区的。如果不去购物区，那将会是一次奇妙的经历。"
Bruce Stanley
Sanya, China -- Sanya, the southernmost seaside city in China and holiday hub of the island of Hainan, has long drawn Chinese tourists to its clean white sand and year-round balmy conditions. But only recently have luxury hotel chains started to see potential: Within the past 16 months, Ritz-Carlton, Mandarin Oriental and Banyan Tree have arrived, joining earlier arrivals Intercontinental, Marriott, Hilton and Accor. That's not to mention the Howard Johnson that became Sanya's biggest deluxe hotel when it opened its 1,360 rooms in December.
Local authorities tout Sanya as China's answer to Hawaii, and have borrowed elements from seaside destinations ranging from Thailand's Phuket to Mexico's Cancun to the French city of Cannes -- which inspired a plan, not yet in place, to restrict a beachfront road to bicycles and electric vehicles. 'We're still only at the beginning,' says Tang Sixian, the Sanya Tourism Development Board's deputy director.
Sanya had more than six million visitors last year, 12% more than in 2007 and about 30% more than in 2006, according to the tourism board. The city boasts of being China's 'forever tropical paradise' -- a status many of the Chinese visitors, men and women both, celebrate with tropical garb that might stand as the island's symbol: a loud floral shirt with matching knee-length shorts. For newly rich Chinese, the chance to indulge themselves at a five-star beach resort, while speaking their own language and enjoying familiar comfort food, is a powerful draw.
Ritz-Carlton spokeswoman Vivian Deuschl says the company chose Sanya 'because there are few resort areas in China, and [Sanya] is seen by many in the travel industry as having much of the appeal Bali has had over the years, especially for affluent Asians.' The Mandarin Oriental Sanya is the only property the company manages in mainland China so far, though it's developing projects in Guangzhou and Beijing; its Beijing hotel was to have opened this summer in the China Central Television tower that was ravaged by fire last February. 'Sanya is a very, very tourism-oriented city, and a lot of the big (hotel) names are there,' says the Sanya resort's spokeswoman, Rebecca Hui.
Sanya has proved popular with non-Chinese as well, notably from Russia, South Korea and Japan. Cruise lines added Sanya to their itineraries after the first phase of a passenger terminal, planned to be one of Asia's biggest -- and built on a manmade island created for that purpose -- opened in 2007.
Visitors from outside China do have to work harder to get to Sanya. There are charter flights from Russia (charter flights from England were abandoned after six months for lack of profit), but the only cities outside the mainland with scheduled direct flights are Seoul and Hong Kong. And the weak global economy has pinched the flow of overseas visitors. The number of Korean visitors plummeted during South Korea's recent economic woes. The Sanya Marriott Resort & Spa says its numbers of guests from Russia and the U.S. were each down more than 50% in the first quarter from a year earlier. But many hotels report a rise in Hong Kong visitors, for whom Sanya, just 600 kilometers away, is a reasonable minibreak destination in a tough economy. And the domestic travelers keep coming.
'We could survive easily with the mainland Chinese business,' says Gerd Knaust, general manager of the Mandarin Oriental Sanya. 'It's more than enough.' Hotels were packed during the Chinese New Year holidays in January, for example -- even though some hotels more than tripled their room rates.
Except for Sanya, Hainan isn't renowned as a magnet for tourists. Resembling a teardrop falling away from China's southern coast, the island, slightly smaller than Taiwan, was long known as a place of exile for political troublemakers. Its best-known native son was Charlie Soong, father of the famous Soong sisters, of whom one married Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen and another Gen. Chiang Kai-shek (the third settled for a rich banker). The island hit the news in 2001 when a U.S. spy plane made an emergency landing there after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet. Sanya itself raised its international profile by hosting the Miss World beauty pageant four times over five years starting in 2003.
Sanya's beach culture originated at Dadonghai, a congested strip of sand near the city center. A more recent crop of hotels, mostly Chinese-owned and operated but including a Holiday Inn and a Kempinski, has sprung up on the western outskirts of the city at Sanya Bay, a 20-minute drive from downtown on the road to the airport. But Sanya's grand strand lies half an hour by car to the east of the city at Yalong Bay. The Chinese navy controlled Yalong and kept developers away until the mid-1990s, but now 16 luxury hotels line a sparkling beach. The first was the Hong Kong-managed Gloria, which opened in 1995. International brands, led by Holiday Inn and Sheraton, arrived soon after that. The Ritz-Carlton, which opened in April 2008, was among the last to secure a sea view. But hotels keep going up -- now in a second row, back away from the beach.
In spite of Yalong's popularity, it doesn't feel crowded. Its beachfront hotels have immaculate, landscaped gardens with a commanding view of the waters of sheltered Yalong Bay. At the Marriott, for example, guests ramble amid breadfruit and frangipani trees and photograph one another by an enormous, amoeba-shaped swimming pool. Couples shuffle to the beach in their hotel slippers and Marriott robes, while elderly guests play mah jong on a beach towel at an outdoor bar.
Without Yalong, 'it would be very hard to sell Sanya' as a top-tier destination, says Mr. Tang of the Sanya tourism board. This being China, Sanya's tourism authorities have bigger ambitions. A bay called Haitangwan, farther along the eastern coast toward the city of Boao, boasts a 21-kilometer beach -- several times as long as the one at Yalong. A modern highway connects Sanya with Haitangwan, and an express train link there is to be completed by 2013. The tourism board predicts that Haitangwan will boast some 40 top-end resorts within 20 years. 'Everyone' wants to be there, says Edmund Ko, director of marketing for the Sanya Marriott.
But aside from copious sand and sun, what else does China's 'forever tropical paradise' offer a visitor? Mr. Knaust of the Mandarin Oriental, which opened in January on a secluded, rocky beach just around a headland from Dadonghai, says Sanya 'is not as culturally diverse as Bali.' The Mandarin's solution is to offer as many as three different instructor-led activities each daylight hour -- say, a choice of lessons in scuba, table tennis or cooking mango pudding.
With 11 restaurants and bars and a spa offering treatments ranging from golfer's massage to 'pore-refining' facials, the hotel aims to provides a self-contained experience. Each of its teak-paneled villas comes with butler service, a private infinity pool and a gazebo.
Hainan actually does offer some cultural diversity for visitors. About 1.2 million of the people living on the island are Li, one of the 55 ethnic minority groups officially recognized in China. Most now live in towns and have lost much of their own language and culture, but there are still pockets where the old ways prevail -- or are preserved to some degree for tourists, as at the re-created village at Bing Lang Yuan. Don't be put off by the parking lot full of tour buses and the guides in matching straw hats bellowing into bullhorns. Bing Lang Yuan is a worthwhile theme park of indigenous folkways.
Visitors can explore thatched houses, smoke a bamboo water pipe, listen to folk songs and sample milky-looking rice wine. A well-organized museum about the Li -- a placard calls them 'a living fossil' -- displays pottery, hand-made guns and other artifacts. The museum provides ample information in English, as does another that is devoted to traditional Li brocade clothing (worn by strikingly tall, Western-looking mannequins). Elderly Li women with their people's distinctive spidery blue tattoos on their faces and legs weave garments on simple lap looms and offer them for sale.
The cultural education at Bing Lang Yuan can take a surprising -- and somewhat disturbing -- turn. One day earlier this year, tourists crowded around a tiny pool to hurl bamboo spears at a dozen pitiful catfish, some already floating belly up in 30 centimeters of water. At a nearby shooting range, other visitors fired wooden darts from Li-style crossbows at live birds tethered to the ground.
Visitors to Sanya can also find snorkeling and windsurfing on West Island, off the shores of Sanya Bay, and Wuzhizou Island near Yalong. Sanya has become popular with a small clan of overseas surfers who appreciate the good surf that Hainan's southern coastline typically enjoys every month but April; at Shimei Bay, about 80 kilometers from Sanya, the swells break at heights of up to three meters and peel in long waves. Sanya has hosted at least two international surfing contests.
Getting Chinese to try the sport can be a challenge, says Brendan Sheridan, a 29-year-old American who sells and rents surfboards from a one-room shop near Dadonghai Beach. He recalls persuading one Chinese visitor to take a lesson, only to have her ask if she could take her sun umbrella with her. 'I just laughed,' he says. 'She went out without it and was fine.'
Sanya isn't renowned for its night life, but visitors seeking a change from hotel bars and easy-listening Filipino bands can try the rambunctious dance halls along Yuya Avenue downtown. 'Bar Street,' a block-long stretch of clubs, throbs with music from pop to techno. One of the more distinctive bars, 66, is a Chinese take on a U.S. roadhouse or saloon, furnished with antique bric-a-brac and retro-looking industrial pipes and flywheels.
Still, hoteliers fret that Sanya must do more to diversify its appeal.
'After you've gone to the beach or sat around the pool for a couple of days, there's not enough to do,' says Peter Wise, general manager of Accor's Pullman Sanya Yalong Bay Resort & Spa. Sanya's four golf courses, for instance, can get crowded, especially for tourists who like to play in large groups. More courses are planned, but some hotel managers are urging local tourism officials to think on a grander scale. One suggests Sanya take a cue from Dubai and build an indoor ski slope.
Petty crime also is a problem. Pickpocketing in markets frequented by tourists is 'a headache,' and Sanya needs to at least triple its 1,000-strong police force, says the tourism board's Mr. Tang.
Some foreigners, unused to haggling, grumble that Sanya's taxi drivers and shopkeepers are out to fleece them. 'After two hours, you feel very angry. You cannot relax,' says Yuliya Sergeeva, a lawyer from Moscow. And even the five-star family resorts at Yalong Bay are vulnerable to prostitution. A security guard at the Hilton Sanya Resort & Spa cheerfully offered to procure, for one guest, a woman for the night.
Yet the charms of tropical China are undeniable, and plenty of visitors succumb. Sanya 'surpassed my expectations,' says Australian Chris Marks, an engineering company director who lives and works in Shanghai.
Mr. Marks chuckles as he and his wife and two teenage daughters join a crowd of Chinese boarding a tour bus outside the Holiday Inn Sanya Bay. 'It's supposed to go to some shopping area,' he says. 'But if it doesn't, hey, it'll be an adventure.'
Bruce Stanley is a writer based in Dubai.
Bruce Stanley
Local authorities tout Sanya as China's answer to Hawaii, and have borrowed elements from seaside destinations ranging from Thailand's Phuket to Mexico's Cancun to the French city of Cannes -- which inspired a plan, not yet in place, to restrict a beachfront road to bicycles and electric vehicles. 'We're still only at the beginning,' says Tang Sixian, the Sanya Tourism Development Board's deputy director.
Sanya had more than six million visitors last year, 12% more than in 2007 and about 30% more than in 2006, according to the tourism board. The city boasts of being China's 'forever tropical paradise' -- a status many of the Chinese visitors, men and women both, celebrate with tropical garb that might stand as the island's symbol: a loud floral shirt with matching knee-length shorts. For newly rich Chinese, the chance to indulge themselves at a five-star beach resort, while speaking their own language and enjoying familiar comfort food, is a powerful draw.
Ritz-Carlton spokeswoman Vivian Deuschl says the company chose Sanya 'because there are few resort areas in China, and [Sanya] is seen by many in the travel industry as having much of the appeal Bali has had over the years, especially for affluent Asians.' The Mandarin Oriental Sanya is the only property the company manages in mainland China so far, though it's developing projects in Guangzhou and Beijing; its Beijing hotel was to have opened this summer in the China Central Television tower that was ravaged by fire last February. 'Sanya is a very, very tourism-oriented city, and a lot of the big (hotel) names are there,' says the Sanya resort's spokeswoman, Rebecca Hui.
Sanya has proved popular with non-Chinese as well, notably from Russia, South Korea and Japan. Cruise lines added Sanya to their itineraries after the first phase of a passenger terminal, planned to be one of Asia's biggest -- and built on a manmade island created for that purpose -- opened in 2007.
Visitors from outside China do have to work harder to get to Sanya. There are charter flights from Russia (charter flights from England were abandoned after six months for lack of profit), but the only cities outside the mainland with scheduled direct flights are Seoul and Hong Kong. And the weak global economy has pinched the flow of overseas visitors. The number of Korean visitors plummeted during South Korea's recent economic woes. The Sanya Marriott Resort & Spa says its numbers of guests from Russia and the U.S. were each down more than 50% in the first quarter from a year earlier. But many hotels report a rise in Hong Kong visitors, for whom Sanya, just 600 kilometers away, is a reasonable minibreak destination in a tough economy. And the domestic travelers keep coming.
'We could survive easily with the mainland Chinese business,' says Gerd Knaust, general manager of the Mandarin Oriental Sanya. 'It's more than enough.' Hotels were packed during the Chinese New Year holidays in January, for example -- even though some hotels more than tripled their room rates.
Except for Sanya, Hainan isn't renowned as a magnet for tourists. Resembling a teardrop falling away from China's southern coast, the island, slightly smaller than Taiwan, was long known as a place of exile for political troublemakers. Its best-known native son was Charlie Soong, father of the famous Soong sisters, of whom one married Chinese revolutionary Sun Yat-sen and another Gen. Chiang Kai-shek (the third settled for a rich banker). The island hit the news in 2001 when a U.S. spy plane made an emergency landing there after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet. Sanya itself raised its international profile by hosting the Miss World beauty pageant four times over five years starting in 2003.
Sanya's beach culture originated at Dadonghai, a congested strip of sand near the city center. A more recent crop of hotels, mostly Chinese-owned and operated but including a Holiday Inn and a Kempinski, has sprung up on the western outskirts of the city at Sanya Bay, a 20-minute drive from downtown on the road to the airport. But Sanya's grand strand lies half an hour by car to the east of the city at Yalong Bay. The Chinese navy controlled Yalong and kept developers away until the mid-1990s, but now 16 luxury hotels line a sparkling beach. The first was the Hong Kong-managed Gloria, which opened in 1995. International brands, led by Holiday Inn and Sheraton, arrived soon after that. The Ritz-Carlton, which opened in April 2008, was among the last to secure a sea view. But hotels keep going up -- now in a second row, back away from the beach.
In spite of Yalong's popularity, it doesn't feel crowded. Its beachfront hotels have immaculate, landscaped gardens with a commanding view of the waters of sheltered Yalong Bay. At the Marriott, for example, guests ramble amid breadfruit and frangipani trees and photograph one another by an enormous, amoeba-shaped swimming pool. Couples shuffle to the beach in their hotel slippers and Marriott robes, while elderly guests play mah jong on a beach towel at an outdoor bar.
Without Yalong, 'it would be very hard to sell Sanya' as a top-tier destination, says Mr. Tang of the Sanya tourism board. This being China, Sanya's tourism authorities have bigger ambitions. A bay called Haitangwan, farther along the eastern coast toward the city of Boao, boasts a 21-kilometer beach -- several times as long as the one at Yalong. A modern highway connects Sanya with Haitangwan, and an express train link there is to be completed by 2013. The tourism board predicts that Haitangwan will boast some 40 top-end resorts within 20 years. 'Everyone' wants to be there, says Edmund Ko, director of marketing for the Sanya Marriott.
But aside from copious sand and sun, what else does China's 'forever tropical paradise' offer a visitor? Mr. Knaust of the Mandarin Oriental, which opened in January on a secluded, rocky beach just around a headland from Dadonghai, says Sanya 'is not as culturally diverse as Bali.' The Mandarin's solution is to offer as many as three different instructor-led activities each daylight hour -- say, a choice of lessons in scuba, table tennis or cooking mango pudding.
With 11 restaurants and bars and a spa offering treatments ranging from golfer's massage to 'pore-refining' facials, the hotel aims to provides a self-contained experience. Each of its teak-paneled villas comes with butler service, a private infinity pool and a gazebo.
Hainan actually does offer some cultural diversity for visitors. About 1.2 million of the people living on the island are Li, one of the 55 ethnic minority groups officially recognized in China. Most now live in towns and have lost much of their own language and culture, but there are still pockets where the old ways prevail -- or are preserved to some degree for tourists, as at the re-created village at Bing Lang Yuan. Don't be put off by the parking lot full of tour buses and the guides in matching straw hats bellowing into bullhorns. Bing Lang Yuan is a worthwhile theme park of indigenous folkways.
Visitors can explore thatched houses, smoke a bamboo water pipe, listen to folk songs and sample milky-looking rice wine. A well-organized museum about the Li -- a placard calls them 'a living fossil' -- displays pottery, hand-made guns and other artifacts. The museum provides ample information in English, as does another that is devoted to traditional Li brocade clothing (worn by strikingly tall, Western-looking mannequins). Elderly Li women with their people's distinctive spidery blue tattoos on their faces and legs weave garments on simple lap looms and offer them for sale.
The cultural education at Bing Lang Yuan can take a surprising -- and somewhat disturbing -- turn. One day earlier this year, tourists crowded around a tiny pool to hurl bamboo spears at a dozen pitiful catfish, some already floating belly up in 30 centimeters of water. At a nearby shooting range, other visitors fired wooden darts from Li-style crossbows at live birds tethered to the ground.
Visitors to Sanya can also find snorkeling and windsurfing on West Island, off the shores of Sanya Bay, and Wuzhizou Island near Yalong. Sanya has become popular with a small clan of overseas surfers who appreciate the good surf that Hainan's southern coastline typically enjoys every month but April; at Shimei Bay, about 80 kilometers from Sanya, the swells break at heights of up to three meters and peel in long waves. Sanya has hosted at least two international surfing contests.
Getting Chinese to try the sport can be a challenge, says Brendan Sheridan, a 29-year-old American who sells and rents surfboards from a one-room shop near Dadonghai Beach. He recalls persuading one Chinese visitor to take a lesson, only to have her ask if she could take her sun umbrella with her. 'I just laughed,' he says. 'She went out without it and was fine.'
Sanya isn't renowned for its night life, but visitors seeking a change from hotel bars and easy-listening Filipino bands can try the rambunctious dance halls along Yuya Avenue downtown. 'Bar Street,' a block-long stretch of clubs, throbs with music from pop to techno. One of the more distinctive bars, 66, is a Chinese take on a U.S. roadhouse or saloon, furnished with antique bric-a-brac and retro-looking industrial pipes and flywheels.
Still, hoteliers fret that Sanya must do more to diversify its appeal.
'After you've gone to the beach or sat around the pool for a couple of days, there's not enough to do,' says Peter Wise, general manager of Accor's Pullman Sanya Yalong Bay Resort & Spa. Sanya's four golf courses, for instance, can get crowded, especially for tourists who like to play in large groups. More courses are planned, but some hotel managers are urging local tourism officials to think on a grander scale. One suggests Sanya take a cue from Dubai and build an indoor ski slope.
Petty crime also is a problem. Pickpocketing in markets frequented by tourists is 'a headache,' and Sanya needs to at least triple its 1,000-strong police force, says the tourism board's Mr. Tang.
Some foreigners, unused to haggling, grumble that Sanya's taxi drivers and shopkeepers are out to fleece them. 'After two hours, you feel very angry. You cannot relax,' says Yuliya Sergeeva, a lawyer from Moscow. And even the five-star family resorts at Yalong Bay are vulnerable to prostitution. A security guard at the Hilton Sanya Resort & Spa cheerfully offered to procure, for one guest, a woman for the night.
Yet the charms of tropical China are undeniable, and plenty of visitors succumb. Sanya 'surpassed my expectations,' says Australian Chris Marks, an engineering company director who lives and works in Shanghai.
Mr. Marks chuckles as he and his wife and two teenage daughters join a crowd of Chinese boarding a tour bus outside the Holiday Inn Sanya Bay. 'It's supposed to go to some shopping area,' he says. 'But if it doesn't, hey, it'll be an adventure.'
Bruce Stanley is a writer based in Dubai.
Bruce Stanley
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