Sanya caps hotel price at $870 for Spring Festival tourists

The popular resort of Sanya city in southern China's Hainan province has capped the price for a standard hotel room at 6,000 yuan ($873) a night for the upcoming Spring Festival holiday to fight price gouging.

With many holidaymakers expected to swarm into the city, market regulators vowed to maintain strict supervision and crack down on hotels that inflate prices.

The city has 1,752 hotels and 107,100 rooms at various standards. Four new hotels with 1,937 rooms started operation in the run-up to the Lunar New Year on Jan 28.

Statistics show prices for 76.4 percent of the hotel rooms during the holiday range from 300 yuan to 1,500 yuan while 58 hotels charge average 3,000 yuan for a standard room.

Local authorities investigated prices at more than 100 hotels both openly and secretly before the festival, finding no price irregularities to date.

Sanya also will redouble efforts to check hotels, scenic spots, and food markets during the holiday. It promises to respond to any complaints from tourists within 30 minutes.

By Jan 20, the hotel booking rate reached 58.12 percent, a slight fall of 2.44 percentage points from the holiday period last year.