Culture Tourism

Festival speculation spurs Sanya hotel price hike

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-02-08 15:40

Hotel room prices in Sanya catapulted to a staggering high of more than 15,000 yuan (US$2,200) average, or even 34,500 yuan (US$5,050) for one night during the upcoming Spring Festival, the China Business Daily reported Monday.

Market speculation is believed to be behind the irrational inflation at the south China tourism paradise

During the holiday, the coastal city's Hilton Hotel charges 11,138 yuan to 16,048 yuan for a one night stay, outstripping the 10,000 yuan watershed price. The king of price hiking goes to the Mandarin Oriental Hotel whose top offer is 34,500 yuan per night, tenfold of its non-holiday averages.

"I have never seen such collective price hike of over 10,000 yuan a night in previous years," Qu Jia, a tour consultant said.

Price hike amid the Chinese Lunar New Year has been a regular last-minute tool used by the island’s hotel industry to ransack the ritual in-flow of tourists. However, the peculiarity in Hainan this year lies in its large scale of inflations abetted by property speculators who swarmed here after Beijing pledged to build the island into an international tourism hub, analysts said.

Real estate dealers, in the "spare time" of their trading in the property market, booked many of the idle hotel rooms in advance to resell them at a higher price later, Xiao Baojun, a travel agent mamager said to China Business Daily.

Travel agents might play a part in the hoarding as well, as the middlemen between hotels and tourists, the newspaper said.

The dealings can be very lucrative if the stored rooms were resold in time before the holiday, but they also pose a huge risk of ending up in the hands of the speculators, since the price tag is far beyond the reach of general tourists, a hotel sales manager using a pseudonym told the newspaper.

Apart from the heated hotel markets on the island, the vehicle rental industry shot into a red-hot frenzy with over 90 percent cars booked already during the holiday. Charges as well as deposit amounts tripled generally.