Islands in the sun(2)

Political sensitivity

The tour began after Tan Li, executive vice governor of Hainan Province, said at the Boao Forum held earlier this month that China will allow tourists to visit the Xisha Islands on cruise tours ahead of the May Day holidays.

But whether Coconut Princess will sail on schedule is still uncertain.

An official at the news office of the China National Tourism Administration (CNTA), who required anonymity, told the Global Times Friday that she had no information about the opening of the Xisha Islands route to the public.

"The local government wants to keep a low profile on it," she said.

"We have not received any notice for the approval of the Xisha Islands tour," an official at the Sanya Tourism and Development Commission, who did not give his name, told the Global Times Friday.

"Hainan has prepared for the tour for years, but it needs to be approved by the central government, given the region's political and military sensitivity," he said.

The Xisha Islands are a cluster of 22 islets, seven sandbanks and more than 10 reefs. Vietnam also claims sovereignty over the Xisha Islands, but China has stated that its sovereignty over the Xisha Islands is indisputable.

Developing tourism around the Xisha Islands could help China strengthen its claim to sovereignty, and solve territorial disputes with neighboring countries, Wang Zhifa, vice chairman of the CNTA, said on the sidelines of China's annual two sessions held in March 2012.

"China's efforts to develop tourism in the Xisha Islands are more cautious," Liu said, noting that Vietnam and the Philippines have been conducting tourism projects around parts of the Nansha Islands, which are also the subject of territorial disputes.

A niche market

The Xisha Islands tour has attracted some travel agencies, which target the high-end market.

Luo Honghu, who is the CEO of Hainan Golden Sun International Travel Co, has a plan to launch a tour route to the islands by sailboat.

"Compared with traveling by cruise ship, traveling by sailboat is more challenging, and will attract those who love adventure," Luo said. "But we need to get approval from the government as the route concerns national security."

Other travel agencies are holding a wait-and-see attitude.

"Actually our travel agency planned to organize a tour to the Xisha Islands by helicopter in the late 1990s, but the plan was canceled due to tension in the South China Sea following an aircraft collision between China and the US in the area in April 2011," Li Wenting, director of the hotel and ticket supply division at China International Travel Service (CITS), told the Global Times Friday.

"Currently our agency has not launched the Xisha Islands tour route, and we will see the market response to the first tours, as the journey is tough and not so comfortable," Zhang Lingjie, general manager of the domestic tourism department with CITS, said Monday.

Experts said the Xisha Islands tour will be a high-end and niche business, due to the islands' ecological fragility and lack of tourism infrastructure.

"Unlike the Maldives which is comprised of more than 1,000 islets, with nearly 100 of them developed into holiday resorts, the Xisha Islands' conditions do not allow mass construction of hotels and tourism-related facilities," Liu said.

"But the region is proper for a variety of maritime tourism projects such as cruises, sailing, sea-plane sightseeing and snorkeling, which pose less threat to the islands' ecological environment," he said.