Resort city opens doors to beauty pageant

This year will be the second in a row that the final round of the pageant will be held in China. Hainan's Sanya city fought an aggressive marketing campaign to bring the contest to the island, which it is promoting as a tourist resort.

This year will be the second in a row that the final round of the pageant will be held in China. Last year's contest took place in Hainan's Sanya city. The contest this year will be held on December 4.

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Sanya hosted last year's Miss World after the central government shunned decades of communist disapproval of beauty pageants in favor of using the widely viewed event to promote tourism. The city fought an aggressive marketing campaign to bring the contest to the island, which it is promoting as a tourist resort. Sanya is perhaps better known for the emergency landing of a US spy plane after a mid-air collision with a Chinese fighter that sent Sino-American relations into a tailspin in April 2001.

Sanya is China's southernmost city, a palm-shaded resort on Hainan Island - dubbed "China's Hawaii" by boosters - some 4,300 kilometers (2,700 miles) southwest of Beijing.

Until now, the city has perhaps been best known as the site of a military base where a damaged US Navy surveillance plane made an emergency landing in 2001 after colliding with a Chinese fighter jet. The Chinese pilot was never found, and the American crew was held for 11 days before being released.

Though Hainan attracts millions of mostly Chinese visitors a year to its golf courses and sugar-white beaches, most here still make their living farming or fishing.

Miss World 2003: Sanya in global spotlight

Sanya invested millions to host Miss World 2003, the first such international competition in China and a landmark event in the country's efforts to become a global player.

"It is a milestone in the development of Chinese culture," said Sanya Mayor Chen Ci at a press conference. "We did spend quite a lot of money, but the consequence will be huge. It will have a positive influence on the city's future."

Chen said he hoped Sanya would make US$100 million from the exposure brought by the competition.

The city of 500,000 people had spent US$31 million repaving and repairing roads, highways and bridges, the mayor said. He said that would help with other sporting and business events held on the island.

Government money and private donations paid for a US$4.8 million license to hold Miss World 2003. Private money also paid for the US$12 million "Beauty Crown Cultural Center."

In return, Sanya was showcased to a television audience estimated by the contest's London-based organizers at 2 billion. "That is the best advert you can have in front of the greatest audience that the world's television has ever seen," said Paul Ridley, a spokesman for the Miss World competition. Banners welcoming Miss World contestants and promoting the city were found every few feet - strung across busy roads, fluttering from lampposts, hanging in the fronts of restaurants, banks and office buildings.

"Bring on the beauties of the world, show the world the beauty of Sanya," read one banner. Said another: "Beautiful Sanya, beautiful life."

Newspapers were filled with stories about the competition, which began with preliminary events such as the naming of "Miss Sports" and "Miss Top Personality." "I was really happy to see the girls when they passed by the other day," said Du Juan, 20, who works in a beauty salon. "I do want a little to be beautiful like them."

Tickets for the event sold briskly, although the prices - US$80 to US$2,000 - were preposterously steep for a country where urban monthly salaries averages US$100.

"The people buying have got to be foreigners," said painter Zhong Senghe, 40. "Who else can afford them?"

Under China's tight security, the competition seemed unlikely to experience the upheaval that it did in Nigeria in 2002. That contest was hastily moved to London after more than 200 people were killed in rioting between Muslims and Christians. The fighting erupted after a Nigerian newspaper suggested the Muslim prophet Muhammad would have approved of the Miss World pageant - and might have wanted to marry a contestant. In one Sanya neighborhood filled with Muslims of China's Hui minority, many said the pageant and the hubbub surrounding it didn't affect them. No one seemed too upset at the contest, though a few dismissed it as irrelevant.

"It doesn't interfere with our beliefs," said Hai Yelong, a 60-year-old Muslim pedicab driver. Besides, he said of the contestants, "Everyone likes to see them."