Hainan To Regulate Hotel Room Pricing

According to an official from the Hainan Provincial Tourism Development Commission, Hainan province will promulgate documents to regulate the market price of hotel rooms, set up an information publishing system, and to urge hotels to be self-regulating.

A deputy director of the commission, Wu Kunxiong, commented that there are three reasons for the high prices of hotel rooms during the Spring Festival: the imbalance between supply and demand; higher prices in the high season being used to compensate for lower prices in the low season; and the action of a few real estate speculators who push up hotel room prices.

Wu said that Hainan would take measures to handle these problems. The province will build more hotels to balance supply and demand. "Currently Hainan has 40 five-star hotels, and there will be 10 or 20 new ones in the following two years," Wu stated. The government will issue relevant criteria to regulate the hotel sector, making prices match the service hotels provide. Also, the government will urge hotels to enhance their training programs to improve service levels.

Chen Yao, another deputy director of the commission, said the high price of hotel rooms during Spring Festival has already affected the image of Hainan's tourism industry. Although Hainan has hotels of various levels and prices for tourists to choose from, there is still a dearth of tourism information and attractions for tourists compared with world-class tourism destinations.