Institutional innovation boosts yacht industry in Sanya

During this year's Spring Festival holiday, Hainan province reported a total of 5,460 yacht travel on the sea, with over 93 percent made by yachts from the tropical city of Sanya, according to statistics from the Hainan Provincial Department of Transport.

With an average of more than 700 trips made out to the sea per day during the holiday, Sanya achieved a good start in the yacht travel business of marine recreation.

Chen Shengqiong, director of the marina management center of the Visun Royal Yacht Club, attributed Sanya's booming yacht tourism, even after the Spring Festival holiday, to the popularity of yacht travel and the yacht supervision system innovation made over recent years.

In June 2020, the Sanya maritime safety administration took the lead in carrying out the pilot reform of "Multiple Certificates Integration" for yachts and other passenger ships.

The number of application materials were reduced by up to six, with the longest processing and approval time  shortened from dozens of working days to 10, drastically saving time for enterprises, said Weng Jiancai, director of Sanya MSA. He added that the reform has also been selected as one of the institutional innovation cases in the Hainan Free Trade Port.

Sanya MSA is continuing to improve services, implementing an "All in One" mechanism to ensure that all items requiring government review can be handled at the same time. It also launched green channel mechanisms, handling different affairs at one time and allowing enterprises to offer supplemental materials.

In addition, it also launched the "One Ship, One Code" comprehensive management system for the first time nationwide, integrating the information used in maritime, transportation, taxation, tourism, market supervision, and other departments for supervision and management use.

According to Weng, Sanya provided "All in One" services for 104 yachts and handled "Multiple Certificates Integration" services for more than 500 yachts last year. Boosted by the reform, Sanya's annual yacht ownership continued to grow, reaching 739 by 2020. The ownership registration of second-hand yachts increased by 81 percent year-on-year, showing a prosperous yacht property rights trading market.

At present, the lowest price of a single yacht travel for three hours in Sanya is about 2,000 yuan ($309), while the per capita consumption is less than 100 yuan during the off-season. The tropical city of Sanya is making yacht tours more affordable to attract tourists.