Sanya is located in the southern section of the Hainan islands, the southern most province of China, which was called the “end of the earth’ in ancient times when political dissidents and delegated officials were exiled there. Though its administrative history dates back to the Han Dynasty (206BC-220AD), Sanya was a deserted coastal place in the minds many Chinese inlanders for the following thousands of years.
This negative image has dramatically changed today, particularly over the past few years, as Sanya is gradually becoming one of the major tourist meccas for both Chinese and foreign visitors. Young people now save money for a whole year in order to flee the dim and frozen north during the New Year’s holidays for Sanya’s warmth. A kind of romantic atmosphere permeates every inch of the tropical land, and it has thus become a favorite location for wedding parties from different parts of the country and even the world.
Sanya is noted for its unpolluted sky and sea waters, since the city has next to no industry and the local government has no plans to develop any. Its coastline stretches for 209 km, and visitors can stroll along the beach in the morning when the sea is out. Looking for shells left on the sand. Diving down 10 meters to the bottom of the sea is certainly a marvelous adventure. Wandering among the dancing corals and shining –colored fishes swimming busily in large shoals, your feel as if you are intruding in this fantastic free world.
Though lying within the tropics, Sanya has a temperate ocean monsoon climate and rainfall, which nourish its erve-green vegetation. In addition to the tropical rain forests growing in its mountainous areas, palms and coconuts tress can be seen everywhere, lining the beaches and flanking the roads. Growling between the tress and in backyards is a kind of bush with bright-pink flowers all year round. This flower, called the “sanjiaomei”(triangle plum blossom), is regarded as the city flower of Sanya since, according to the locals, it stands for prosperity.
Sanya boasts terrific scenic spots, that have become symbols of the city. Among them the most famous are Tianya Haijiao (the end of the earth) scenic area, Yalong Bay resort, Luhuitou mountain top park, from where one may have a pleasant birdseye view of the whole city, and the Nanshan scenic park known for its delicately sculptured Buddhist temples. According to the management of Luhuitou Park, more than 720,000 tourists visited in 1998, Sanya provided refuge for many nobles and intellectuals with unorthodox ideas in the feudal society, and consequently it has been left with many valuable historical relics. The local authorities have been making great effort to enrich Sanya’ tourist attractions by building several new facilities. The newly-built Museum of Shells displays shells of various types and sizes from every ocean in the world, and the Butterfly Museum is indeed a charming place with countless butterflies fluttering among giant tropic plants.
The local culture and folklore is a multi-national mixture since Sanya is home to several nationalities including the Han, Li, Hui (Muslin), Miao and others. Residential houses of different architectural styles represent their cultures It is amazing that a visitor may be served by several bartenders in uniforms of different nationalities in a restaurant, each selling a kind of home-made wine. The Li nationality people, one of the major aboriginal residents on the Hainan islands, well maintain their cultural tradition characterized by bright colored clothes, a simple and original living style and cheerful singing and dancing . Visitors are invited to attend their holiday and wedding ceremonies at which everyone has to drink “biang”, a kind of sweet rice wine and take part in the sport-like Li dance.
Touring Sanys is great for those who like good food. Seafood lovers will find the place a paradise. Thanks to the South China Sea, almost all kinds of delicious seafood are served in the local restaurants, in which the waiters persuade guests to taste the fresh lobsters and oysters. Some small open-air restaurants on the beach are popular with both tourists and local residents. The guests are allowed to choose the fish, lobsters, shellfish or crabs themselves from a number of huge barrels standing in line, and then ask the chef to cook them. Evening closes in, and the atmosphere becomes romantic, with the waves murmuring right next to the table and the light from fishing boats glimmering in the distance. Coconut is one of the delights on Sanya’ menu. What’s most spectacular is the milk-like drink made of the fruit’s juice and cream and the so-called coconut rice which the imaginative chefs cook by putting rice into the inside of a coconut. No outsiders know exactly how this is done.
The abundant resources enabled Sanyua to rapidly develop into a typical tourist city. Its tourist sector accounted for 33 percent of the city’s GDP in 1997 and this proportion is steadily increasing. In the past 10 years alone, over160 modern hotels have been marked on the local map in comparison with 1980s when there were only a dozen. About one-third of the hotels are star-level. The city has 20 travel agencies, half engaged in domestic business and half in overseas business.
Sanya today is by no means the “end of the earth” that few people could reach. The newly-built Phoenix International Airport has 23 domestic and overseas air routes. There are three highways (two being expressways) which go across the island from Haikou, the provincial capital on the north side, to Sanya. Rail transportation will be available sooner or later when the railway-line links up with the mainland’s by cross-strait ferries.
A newly-rising urban city, Sanya’s future image and how it will develop to a great extent depend upon the designing and planning of the city’s management and those enterprises actively participating in it. The Sanya Tourism Investment Co. Ltd. is a large developer with an annual turnover exceeding 50 million yuan. With the approval and support of the local government the company is developing a new itinerary sending tourists to the Xisha Islands, a group of islands about 330 km to the southeast of Hainan. According to Yang Qiyuan, managing director of the company, visiting Xisha is an exciting tour. On the islands rarely visited by humans, people will be fascinated by its untainted natural beauty and ecosystem.
Mr. Yang feels his company has a responsibility for not only the improvement of local tourism, but also Sanya’s development. He said, “It is not like those scenic areas on the mainland, where tourism has already taken shape, Sanya is just like a blank sheet of paper waiting for drawing and blueprinting. Therefore, we the developers must pay attention to the historical and cultural values of the projects under consideration, and what’s of prime importance is not to harm the environment and ecosystem.” A leading enterprise in the sector, the company is actively calling for implementing international standards in tourism development and management so as to guarantee that tourism becomes a part of the city’s sustainable development plan right from the beginning.
Premier Zhu Rongji toured around Hainan’s main sites including Sanya at the end of 1998, and commented, “A well-developed tropical agricultural system and the tourism industry will surely bring about great wealth for Hainan.” The heads of Hainan’s provincial government announced in Beijing early in 1999, during the Second Session of the Ninth National People’s Congress that the environment and its ecosystem are the image and wealth of the province, and the protection of the environment will be the precondition for Hainan’s economic development. Because of commonly-recognized knowledge and understanding, it has become clear to Sanya’s government and tourist sector that carefully protecting the environment is the city’s lifeline, which’s the symbol of Sanya and the very source that brings in cash and creates economic vitality.
(Jean Lee)
