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Friday, May 29, 2020, 15:32
Waiting for the sun to shine again on ‘Hawaii of the East’
By Luo Weiteng in Hong Kong
Friday, May 29, 2020, 15:32 By Luo Weiteng in Hong Kong

A traveler steps to a room displayed on the Airbnb website. The coronavirus pandemic has hammered sharing-economy businesses like Airbnb in the past few months. (PHOTO PROVIDED TO CHINA DAILY)

Zhang Ruonan, who runs a newly opened guesthouse in Sanya — China’s top beach holiday destination on the Southern China island province of Hainan — has seen her hospitality business get off to a rocky start since the start of the Year of the Rat.

“I’d be lying if I told you I wasn’t worried. There was simply no business in February and March. All bookings were off,” she lamented.

Zhang’s story is pretty dramatic. The 30-year-old graduate of Fudan University, one of the nation’s most prestigious seats of higher learning, surprised everyone by quitting her job with a Shanghai-based media firm and packing up for the “Hawaii of the East” in late 2018.

Born and bred in a grassroots family in Northwest China’s Gansu province, Zhang dished out hundreds of thousands of yuan — nearly her parents’ entire life savings — to buy a vacation-rental property. She took on all the work, from the design, purchase and delivery of building materials to decorations, in order to save money.

It was late last year when everything seemed to be on the right track. Zhang also listed her guesthouse for short stays on Airbnb, betting big on what the sharing economy had to offer. Then came the bombshell — the coronavirus pandemic reared its head, sweeping across the most populous country on Earth, confining vacationers to their homes and freezing global and domestic travel.

Zhang believes her venture was ill-timed.

“The outbreak put an abrupt halt to almost everything in what could be one of the most important peak seasons for the hospitality and tourism business,” she said. “This particularly rings true for Hainan, where the peak season is relatively short-lived. I was told if hoteliers on the island can’t make money during the Chinese New Year holidays, they’re virtually doomed for the whole year.”

Small Airbnb hosts like Zhang typically have fewer resources to withstand a prolonged slump. But bigger hoteliers, which usually rent and manage several vacation apartments, also face mounting pressures of paying rents, staff salaries and utility bills.

As the world’s second-largest economy takes the lead in restarting businesses and getting factories humming again, Zhang feels the most difficult time has passed. But as a newbie in the hospitality industry, she knows she has to go the extra mile touting for business as the market struggles to cast off the stay-at-home mentality.

Hainan is among the first provinces in China where guesthouses were allowed to reopen. A Sanya-based Airbnb host Zhang knows well said their business in April returned to 70 percent of the same period last year, and is expected to surge by 40 percent in May from a year ago.

As most tourists prefer to travel within the country for the time being, Sanya and Hainan itself may be an alternative for distant beach destinations like Thailand. “Many hoteliers here believe business should stay robust at least until year-end,” Zhang said.

An interview story describing Zhang’s pursuit of a turning point in life turned her into quite a luminary among her circle of friends, fellow alumni and acquaintances last year.

“Many sent me messages, applauding my courage to do something they’ve long dreamed of, but wouldn’t dare to make a move,” Zhang said. “But for me, an inland habitant who never saw the sea in the first 20 years of my life, it’s just about realizing a dream. After a bumpy ride, I think it’s time to make a fresh start.”

sophia@chinadailyhk.com



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