Rosewood Sanya Opens on Haitang Bay
Rosewood's first resort in mainland China opened on 21 August 2017 on Hainan Island, with 246 sea-facing rooms and a 110-metre pool on the thirteenth floor.
Rosewood Sanya opened on 21 August 2017 on Haitang Bay, on the south-east coast of Hainan Island. It was the group’s second hotel in mainland China, after Rosewood Beijing, and its first resort there. The hotel has 246 rooms, all facing the South China Sea.
Hainan and Haitang Bay
Hainan is China’s tropical island, at the latitude of Hawaii, and Sanya, on its southern tip, is the country’s main beach resort. Development began at Dadonghai and Yalong Bay in the 1990s. Haitang Bay, a 20-kilometre arc of sand 40 minutes north-east of the city, came later and was planned from the start for large international hotels. By 2017 it had become the most prestigious address on the island, helped by the opening of a very large duty-free shopping complex.
The hotel
The resort is part of a 16-hectare development that includes a convention centre, the Sanya Forum. The hotel itself is a single curving building of thirteen storeys set back from the beach behind gardens.
Rooms start at 68 square metres, which is large for the category, and the biggest suite covers 680. Every room has a balcony with a daybed, and 45 have a plunge pool on the balcony. Interiors are light and residential, in pale timber, rattan and stone, with Chinese contemporary art, and stay clear of the tropical clichés common in Sanya.
The feature that made the hotel known is on the roof. A 110-metre infinity pool runs along the thirteenth floor, with the bay beyond its edge, beside East Kitchen, the all-day restaurant. A second restaurant, The Fishmonger, is arranged like a seafood market, where guests choose from the day’s catch. The Sense spa has seven treatment rooms, and there is an outdoor yoga platform and a club for children.
Where it fits
Sanya is primarily a domestic destination, busiest at Chinese New Year and in the winter months, when northern China is cold. For foreign visitors it has become easier to reach: Hainan offers visa-free entry to citizens of many countries, and there are direct flights from Hong Kong, Singapore and other Asian cities.
Rosewood’s later openings in China followed in the cities: Guangzhou in 2019, with others planned. The group’s best-known hotel, Rosewood Hong Kong, opened the same year. On Hainan, the Sanya resort remains among the most assured in design, alongside the Edition and the Capella on the neighbouring bays.