Mary Gostelow's Hotel of the Week: Kempinski Hotel Haitang Bay
Looking down at a canal and gondolas.
A weekly series featuring luxury hotel expert Mary Gostelow’s hotel pick of the week.
The owner of Kempinski Hotel Haitang Bay, in the Sanya area of China’s Hainan Island, is an ambitious Chinese entrepreneur who always longed to have his own hotel. So much so that he is building one right by the seaside with nearly a mile of pristine white sand beach. When eventually finished, it will have 626 bedrooms, looking down at five miles of specially-built canals and gondolas. Yes, this man likes The Venetian Macau. He also likes wood, which is his bread and butter (he is a timber merchant at a large scale).
A China-shaped table top, with Hainan Island bottom left.
To make his hotel even more special, he imported a 200-year-old Shanghai courtyard house to make into what might be the world’s only Wood Art Museum, full of priceless ancient chairs and beds and a modern table shaped like a map of China. Visit for free when you are a guest. 399 rooms are already open – opt for one of the top sixth floor duplex suites, with outdoor circular bathtubs or take one of the 25 pool villas, which have two to five bedrooms, if visiting with family and friends.
The hotel’s wedding chapel.
The world’s biggest duty free shopping emporium, CDF Mall.
There is so much to do here: get married in the beach-set wedding chapel; have champagne delivered by Segway; play golf; cycle; or take a shuttle five miles to the world’s biggest luxury duty-free shopping emporium, CDF Mall, which opened September 2014. The 300 brands in the three-floor mall start with Armani and Bulgari and continue on to Zegna. It is well worth going if merely to watch Chinese shopping. Yes, even though they are ‘domestic’ travelers, they can buy duty-free, and those staying at Kempinski get an eight percent discount. Back at the hotel, dining choices are Chinese or international-Italian, with a freestanding Paulaner Brauhaus, in a century-old house opening shortly. Hotel GM is Rudiger Hollweg.
Mary outside the 200-year old house that is the Wood Art Museum.
