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Mark O'Neill

The currency may be strong and transport links to the outside world inadequate, but the Chinese town of Sanya is preparing for an influx of tourists.

 The Hainan island beach resort is banking on a Buddha 14 metres taller than New York's Statue of Liberty. Construction started a week ago.

 The stone, four-faced Kuan Yin Buddha will be 108 metres high, against 93.5 metres for the Statue of Liberty.

 It will cost 400 million yuan (HK$372 million) and take 15 months to build.

 The Buddha is to be financed by selling the faithful the right to inscribe their names on one of 100,000 miniature Kuan Yins, to be placed inside the statue.

 The cost: 8,000 yuan (HK$7,900) each.

 Kuan Yin has many followers in China and Southeast Asia and is considered the goddess of sailors, fishermen and women who want to become pregnant.

 It is all part of Sanya's plan to transform itself into the Hawaii or Phuket of China.

 In 1997, it attracted 120,000 foreign tourists, up 64 per cent on the previous year. There were also three million Chinese visitors.

 The tourists went to enjoy the beaches, coconuts, mangoes and seafood, tropical landscape and the average year-round temperature of 25 degrees Celsius.

 The problem is they stayed just 1.5 days on average, with Chinese spending 400 yuan a day and Americans 1,500 yuan, said Vice-Mayor Wang Weilu.

 Now four golf courses are also being built, in addition to the one in operation, as well as sports clubs and nature parks.

 Singapore's Yuan Li group plans to develop a holiday village and tropical forest.

 There will be a Taoist park and an Islamic monument.

 The city also wants to build a casino exclusively for foreigners. The central Government, however, has refused permission, fearing locals will still be drawn there to waste their hard-earned money.

 Mr Wang said tourism had grown 10 per cent in the first quarter of this year, with the resort full at Lunar New Year.

 Thousands could not find hotel rooms after being brought by illegal tourist companies, mostly from Guangdong. So far this year, Hainan province has cancelled the licences of more than 100 tour firms.

 Mr Wang said the currency crisis was hurting Sanya, with four weekly flights from South Korea cancelled and the lure of cheaper prices in Southeast Asia. It costs a person from Hainan only 4,000 yuan for a week-long holiday in Thailand.



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Towering Buddha beckons