Date: August 2013
Location: Sanya, China
Sponsor: City of Sanya
Chair: Harry Frampton
Subject Area: Economic growth and development, metropolitan and regional strategies
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Panel Assignment and Recommendations

An international team of experts conducted a ULI Advisory Services Panel in Sanya, China, in August 2013. This panel, led by former ULI Chairman Harry Frampton, spent a week touring and interviewing key officials and businesses to understand how Sanya could attract a more diverse set of visitors. The overarching goal of the ULI recommendations was to make Sanya a world-class resort city.

The city of 600,000 located on the south side of Hainan Island is the only true tropical resort in China. The number of luxury hotels located in Sanya is staggering, with more than 15,000 rooms currently and more than 35,000 rooms expected by the end of 2016. The sheer scale of development convinced the panel that Sanya must evolve from its current practice of project-specific development review to a more strategic approach.  The panel also recognized that for development to be sustainable, the urban core of the city must be part of and participate in the success of the resort hotels, most of which are located many kilometers outside of the core.

The panel suggested six organizing principles to help Sanya become a world-class resort city:

1.       Protect
2.       Enhance
3.       Connect
4.       Care
5.       Promote
6.       Collaborate