What it costs
Four weeks on Hainan for two, 28 nights, eleven hotels from Holiday Inn Express to InterContinental, a full programme, no rental car.
Accommodation
| Cheapest night, breakfast for two | €31 |
| City hotel in the centre | €55 |
| Resort with 25 thermal pools | €64 |
| City luxury, Haikou | €100 |
| Beach luxury, Haitang Bay | €182 |
A fivefold difference between bottom and top — same hotel group, same island. The sharpest comparison is Haikou: around €100 at the InterContinental, around €45–50 at the Holiday Inn Express — same city, same week.
Everything else
| City bus or tram | ¥1–5 |
| Didi across Sanya | ¥15–30 |
| Morning tea | ¥10–30 |
| Dinner at the night market, for two | ¥30–60 |
| Train Sanya → Haikou | approx. ¥100 |
| Nanshan, high season | approx. ¥129 |
| Ocean Paradise | approx. ¥198 |
Admission fees are the item people underestimate. Food, buses and trains are almost free by comparison.
In total
About €3,000 for two people, 28 nights, on the ground, excluding flights — about €53 per person per day. That's the figure without any tricks, everything paid. If you use hotel loyalty programmes, you can do it for less.
About half the programme has no admission fee: promenades and beaches, Houhai, the markets, both duty-free malls, the fishing ports, Qilou old street, the Cloudscape Library and the science museum (with registration), the lava-stone villages, the coconut grove and Ocean Flower Island.