7 Hainan hotels for 7 types of travelers

Tue, 02/28/2012 - 23:57 — Anonymous by John CoughlanTouted as the
country's only "international tourism destination", tropical Hainan Island
(海南岛) is at the forefront of China's hotel boom. According to
the Hainan Tourist Bureau, the 33,000-square-kilometer island currently
houses more than 209 starred hotels. At Haitang Bay alone, a 42.8-kilometer
beach on the eastern coast, around 30 five-star resorts and 70 luxury
hotels are planned to open over the next few years.  When guidebook author
Andrew Dembina first visited Hainan in 1992, the closest beach to Sanya had a
handful of hotels and Yalong Bay had just one resort set back from the long
beach. Now, both beaches are jammed with resorts. "The Sheraton at the
man-made Holiday Beach, just outside Hainan's capital of Haikou further
north, is the only foreign hotel brand to have survived a few years in this
lesser visited vicinity," notes Dembina, who wrote the Hainan chapter for
Insight Guides' "Southern China" guidebook. More on CNNGo: Hainan Island:
Heaven or hell for luxury hotels?read more