

Journalists who visited the site of a planned 7-star hotel complex in Hainan, expected to have been completed by the end of this year, were left puzzled by the barren wasteland they found in place of the billion dollar landmark.



According to NetEase, local media reported in 2008 that the ambitious project, which was hoped to give Haikou a landmark 7-star hotel to rival Dubai’s Burj Al Arab, would encompass nearly 40 hectares of land, some of it reclaimed from the sea.



In addition to the hotel, the development would include a duty-free shopping centre, yacht club and an international conference center. After receiving news about the suspension of the project, local journalists visited the site to find that the construction company in charge of the project were nowhere to be found.



The construction site is now an ugly blot on the otherwise beautiful scenery near the Wanlu Park area. A local resident, surnamed Su, told reporters that the local residents were frustrated with the situation. “Most of them believed that a hotel build on top of reclaimed land would destroy the beautiful coastline.”



The project began despite opposition from local residents and the media, but little progress appears to have been made and construction been halted under mysterious circumstances despite 11 billion yuan having already been invested in the project.



Sea water in the area has been polluted due to the iron piers which have now been left to rust, while the artificial island has become an eyesore littered with rubbish and construction materials.



When arriving at the offices belonging to the contractors responsible for the project, they found them abandoned with little information to go on as to who was now in charge of the site. Desks at the offices were covered in a thick layer of dust.



Using a contact sheet left behind on a wall of the office, reporters managed to contact two individuals, both of whom said that the project had stopped due to a lack of capital, but could not give specifics as to why the existing sum of money allocated for the project had run out.

By Lucy Liu

[Images via NetEase]

Share this: Pocket

Telegram

Print

