Costly meal for Hainan

When a tourist to Hainan Island complained on his micro blog that he was charged 3,600 yuan ($571) for a simple three-dish meal at a seafood stall in Sanya during the Spring Festival holiday, local government officials responded to the widespread criticism it triggered by saying it had received no complaints about the service industry during the holiday week.

This sparked even more sarcasm and criticism from netizens, which prompted the local government to try and squirm away from the barrage of criticism by saying its remark about zero complaints only applied to food stalls. It then said it would prosecute anybody badmouthing Sanya.

Statistics show 484,000 tourists elbowed into Sanya, a coastal city of 685,000 permanent residents, during the Spring Festival holiday week, bringing 3.32 billion yuan of tourism revenue to the city.